i. 



I 




-^y- 







"'^B 






^j^^BlillliliiiliiH 










L* 





SILHOUETTES OF 
MY CONTEMPORARIES 



BY 
LYMAN ABBOTT 




Who through faith subdued kingdoms, 
wrought righteousness, quenched the 
violence of fire, waxed valiant in fight, 
turned to flight the armies of the aliens 



GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

1921 



./3 



d 



COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY 

DOXJBLEDAY, PAGE k COMPANY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 

INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT, I92I, BY THE OUTLOOK COMPANY 

PRINTED AT GARDEN CITT, N. T.. C. S. A. 

FxTil Edition 



U U t^ ^ H^ L 



an!.A653194 



k 






t/\) 



PREFACE 

Mrs. Sanchez, in her Life of Mrs. Robert 
Louis Stevenson, describes her mother in 
Samoa, "making silhouettes of the different 
members of the strangely assorted company- 
gathered from the four quarters of the globe. 
First she did the portrait of Ori by throwing the 
shadow of his head on the wall with the help 
of a lamp, then drawing the outline and filling 
it in with India ink. It turned out so good that 
Ori demanded likenesses of all the rest, and soon 
the house was turned into a veritable picture 
gallery." In this book I have attempted, by 
the help of a dim and flickering memory, to 
trace in outline the portraits of some of my 
contemporaries. The volume is a gallery of 
shadow pictures. When in 1876 I became as- 
sociated with Henry Ward Beecher in the editor- 
ship of the Christian Unioriy I introduced into the 
paper a new department entitled "The Outlook." 
Its purpose was not merely to report current 
events, but to interpret them. Looking forward, 
I endeavoured to forecast their relation to the 
future and the probable effect of their lives upon 
it. The department was definitely intended to 



L 



PREFACE 

be, as far as practicable, prophetic both of peril 
and of promise. 

This, of course, involved a study of the men 
who were making history. 

This volume contains some of the results of 
that study ; they are shadow pictures of fellow- 
men whom I have known and whose careers I 
have studied, as looking back, they now appear 
to me. Leaders of their generations have usually 
some one characteristic which distinguishes them 
from their contemporaries. This distinctive char- 
acteristic I have sought to portray. To that ex- 
tent these portraits are partial and imperfect, as 
all portraits, whether painted by the brush or 
the pen, are and must be. They are all por- 
traits of men who I believe have contributed 
something toward the progress which is making 
out of this world a better world — one of justice, 
liberty, and peace. 

Mr. Trollope, in his biography of Thackeray, 
attributes to him and phrases for him his de- 
fence against certain of his critics: "You will 
not sympathize with this young man of mine, 
this Pendennis, because he is neither angel nor 
imp. If it be so, let it be so. I will not paint 
for you angels or imps, because I do not see 
them. The young man of the day, whom I do 
see, and of whom I know the inside and the 
out thoroughly, him have I painted for you; 

vi 



PREFACE 

there he is, and whether you like the picture or 
not." 

Perhaps I have been exceptionally fortunate, 
but I have sketched honestly and as well as I 
know how, the portraits of men as I have known 
them. All politicians are not like Presidents 
Hayes and Roosevelt, nor all reformers like 
Gough and Booker Washington, nor all preachers 
like Brooks and Beecher. But America is rich 
in such men as these. If he is greatest who 
serves his fellowmen the best, then I do not be- 
lieve that any other country has produced in a 
century and a half as many great men as America 
has produced. Depressed and discouraged as 
we are apt to be by the flood of filth and false- 
hood, of corruption and crime, which the daily 
paper offers us for our daily food, it is well 
sometimes to stop, take a quieter and less partial 
view, and realize the right we have as Americans 
for pride in our past and for hope in our future. 

Lyman Abbott. 



vu 



CONTENTS 



PAOB 



P. T. Barnum, Showman 1 

Edwin Booth, Interpreter 16 

The Smiley Brothers, Lovers of Hospitality 28 

John B. Gough, Apostle of Temperance . . 45 

Alice Freeman Palmer, Teacher. ... 59 

John Fiske, Evolutionist 81 

Edward Everett Hale, an American Abou 

Ben Adhem 100 

John G. Whittier, Mystic 126 

General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 

Educational Pioneer 136 

General William Booth, Home Missionary 

Pioneer 155 

Daniel Bliss, Foreign Missionary Pioneer 177 

Dwight Lyman Moody, Evangelist . . . 184 

Henry Ward Beecher, Prophet of the Love 

OF God 213 

Phillips Brooks, Prophet of the Spiritual 

Life 240 

ix 



CONTENTS 

Booker T. Washington, Statesman . 

Rutherford B. Hayes, Peacemaker . 

Abraham Lincoln, Labour Leader . 

Theodore Roosevelt, Preacher of Right- 
eousness 

Jacob Abbott, Friend of Children . 



PAGE 

258 
282 
295 

310 
332 



X 



SILHOUETTES OF 
MY CONTEMPORARIES 



SILHOUETTES OF MY 
CONTEMPORARIES 

p. T. BARNUM, SHOWMAN 

J HAVE a liking for the faith of the small boy 
who said to his mother: "God must have 
laughed when he made a monkey." Why 
not? If we argue from the beauty in the world 
that the Creator has an appreciation of beauty, 
why not from the humour in humanity that the 
Creator has a sense of humour? I have read 
the story of a dancer who, being converted, 
thereafter expressed his devotion to the Virgin 
Mary by daily dancing before her as the best 
possible method of bringing her honour. Dickens 
has rendered a good service by his sympathetic 
picture-stage life behind the curtain in his por- 
trait of the Crummies family, and by his sym- 
pathetic picture of life in the sawdust ring by his 
portrait of Mr. Sleary. Let the reader of this 
article, then, understand the writer's point of 
view. There is a place in God's world for play, 
and the professional entertainer is doing God 
service if he carries into his profession the spirit 

1 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

of honesty, generosity, and purity — that is, if 
he gives his audience their money's worth, 
treats his employees and associates with gene- 
rosity, and rigorously excludes from his entertain- 
ments anything that panders to vice or tends 
to degradation. 

In my collection of autographs, which number 
nearly if not quite a thousand, is the following 
characteristic letter from P. T. Barnum, written 
to me in answer to a request for some information 
concerning Tom Thumb: 

Waldemere, 
Bridgeport, Ct., 
Oct. 5, 1878. 
Rev. Lyman Abbott: 

Dear Sir — Your letter is reed, and I with pleasure en- 
close an explanation of the T. T. matter. 

By the way my big show opens at Gilmore's Garden 
on the 14th inst for a month & I hope you will take 
occasion to see a novel & interesting Exhibition. 

Truly yours, 

P. T. Barnum. 

I call this letter interesting not merely, not 
mainly, because it exhibits the born advertiser, 
but because it illustrates what I think was very 
characteristic of Mr. Barnum, his professional 
pride. He was a great showman, and he was 
proud of being a great showman; a great ad- 
vertiser, and he had a naive pride in his curi- 

2 



p. T. BARNUM 

ously ingenious advertising schemes. He made 
it clear in his autobiography that he considered 
himself called to be a showman; the business 
came to him, he did not seek it out. Looking 
back from the first success as the creator of 
*'Barnum's Museum," he writes: 

The business for which I was destined, and I believe 
made, had not yet come to me; or rather, I had not found 
that I was to cater for that insatiate want of human nature 
— the love of amusement; that I was to make a sensation 
on two continents; and that fame and fortune awaited me 
so soon as I should appear before the public in the char- 
acter of a showman. These things I had not foreseen. 
I did not seek the position or the character. The busi- 
ness finally came in my way; I fell into the occupation, 
and far beyond any of my predecessors on this continent, I 
have succeeded. 

He did not conduct his enterprises to elevate 
society. He was frankly an entertainer, and not 
a reformer. If I am right in defining a good- 
natured man as a man who desires to make other 
people happy, then the word good-natured would 
adequately describe him. He was desirous of 
making money, and he took at times what might 
be called a gambler's chance in making it. But 
he was much more than a mere money-maker. 
If from any entertainment that he provided 
the spectators had gone away disappointed, he 
would have regarded the entertainment as a 

3 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEIVIPORARIES 

failure, no matter what money it brought him. 
His ideals were not always of the highest, but 
he lived up to them. He never sacrificed his 
self-respect in order to get the money of the 
public into his own pocket. He writes: "As 
I always justly boasted, no one could visit my 
Museum and go away without feeling that he 
had received the full worth of his money." It 
was his ambition — and it was gratified — "to 
have men and women all over the country say: 
'There is not another place in the United States 
where so much can be seen for twenty -five cents 
as in Barnum's American Museum.'" 

When I came to New York City in 1849 to 
enter New York University, Barnum's American 
Museum was one of the best-known show places 
in the city. It was situated on the corner of 
Ann Street and Broadway, in what was then the 
centre of a city which now has grown so great 
that it has no centre, because it has many 
centres. Opposite it on Broadway was the best- 
known hotel in the city, the Astor House; three 
or four blocks to the north was the best-known 
restaurant, Delmonico's; between the two was 
''The Park," and in the Park the City Hall. 
The two most famous Episcopal churches of the 
city were Trinity and St. Paul's — ^Trinity five 
or six minutes' walk distant, St. Paul's on the 
corner opposite the Museum. St. George's 

4 



p. T. BARNCM 

(Episcopal) and the Brick Church (Presbyterian) 
had a few years before moved farther up 
town. The Tribune and the Times newspapers 
were close at hand. In the afternoon a band of 
half a dozen pieces played on a balcony overhang- 
ing the street. At night a curious kaleidoscopic 
collection of highly coloured and illuminated 
glasses was kept by some contrivance boiling 
and bubbling on the walls of the Museum. 

Within the Museum was a constantly increas- 
ing collection of all sorts of curiosities, real and 
spurious, natural and artificial. This was long 
before the days of the Metropolitan Museum 
of Art and the Natural History Museum, and 
before the days when those serious and in- 
structive unadvertised collections would have 
drawn any such group of spectators as they now 
draw. It was a more credulous, perhaps a more 
curious, age. Periodically the newspapers took 
up for serious discussion the question : Is there 
a sea serpent? When, therefore, Mr. Bar- 
num advertised a "Feejee Mermaid," the people 
thronged to see it. In truth, it was a curiosity, 
though an artificial one. A naturalist whose 
judgment on it he obtained replied that "he 
could not conceive how it could have been manu- 
factured, for he never saw a monkey with such 
peculiar teeth, arms, hands, etc., and he never 
saw a fish with such pecuHar fins; but he did not 

5 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

believe in mermaids." But it served Mr. Bar- 
num's purpose: it advertised his museum. He 
subsequently concluded that it was a product of 
Japanese ingenuity. 

He purchased for $200 a model of Niagara 
Falls in which the proportions of the falls, the 
hills, rocks, buildings, etc., in the vicinity were 
given with mathematical accuracy, "while the 
absurdity was in introducing 'real water' to rep- 
resent the falls." When the Water Commis- 
sioners summoned him to pay an extra water tax, 
he showed them that the water flowed back into 
a reservoir, from which it was pumped up to 
repeat its service. "A single barrel of water, if 
my pump was in good order, would furnish my 
falls for a month." 

The hazard and expense of new enterprises 
did not daunt him. He learned of the capture 
of a white whale at or near the mouth of the 
St. Lawrence; sent up an expedition; captured 
two of these whales; built a tank of salt water 
in the basement of the Museum; and while they 
lived they proved a paying feature. 

These attractions served as advertisements, 
but he did not depend upon them. As an in- 
ventive advertiser he has had, I rather think, no 
equal in the history of American advertisers. 
A tramp applied to him for a job; would be glad 
to do anything for a dollar a day. Barnum gave 

6 



p. T. BARNUM 

him a breakfast, then told him to lay a brick on 
the corner of Broadway and Ann Street, an- 
other close by the Museum, a third on the corner 
of Broadway and Vesey Street, and a fourth on 
the sidewalk in front of St. Paul's Church; then 
with a fifth brick in hand to "take up a rapid 
march from one to the other, making the circuit, 
exchanging your brick at every point and say 
nothing to any one." At the end of an hour the 
sidewalk was packed with curious people watch- 
ing the inexplicable proceeding and enough of 
the number followed the brick-layer at the end 
of each cycle into the Museum to more than pay 
for his hire. The profit to Mr. Barnum was in 
the talk created and the consequent free advertis- 
ing of the Museum. 

He announced baby shows with prizes for the 
finest baby, the fattest, the handsomest. Emu- 
lous mothers crowded the Museum and the re- 
ports of the baby shows found their way into 
the newspapers far and near. He set an ele- 
phant in charge of a keeper in oriental costume 
ploughing on a six-acre lot close beside the track 
of the New York and New Haven Railroad. The 
keeper was furnished with a time-table, and did 
his ploughing when trains were passing. A 
friendly farmer criticized him for his folly. 
"Your elephant," he said, "can't draw as much 
as two pair of my oxen can." "You are mis- 

7 



•- 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEIVIPORARIES 

taken, my friend," replied Mr. Barnum; "he 
can draw more than forty yoke of oxen; for he 
can draw the attention of twenty miUions of 
American citizens to Barnum's Museum!" 

One important feature of the Museum was its 
" Lecture Room." The theatre had a bad name, 
and thousands of people came every year to New 
York City who would not go to a theatre but 
who were delighted to go to Barnum's Lecture 
Room to be entertained by what in these days 
would be called a vaudeville performance. They 
included educated dogs, industrious fleas, auto- 
matons, jugglers, ventriloquists, living statuary, 
tableaux, gypsies, albinos, fat boys, giants, 
dwarfs, rope-dancers, and the like. 

But from the first the Lecture Room differed 
from the average theatre — certainly the cheaper 
ones — in more than a name. Barnum forbade 
what was common at that time — the setting 
apart a certain section of the house, popularly 
known as the "third tier," where women of the 
town might ply their trade. He would allow no 
bar upon the premises, and, finding some of his 
patrons going out, as was the custom, for a drink 
between the acts, he ceased giving return checks 
to such as went out. My shadowy recollection 
of that time confirms his claim that he allowed 
on the stage no indelicacies of costume and no 
salacious dialogues. When the reputation of 

8 



p. T. BARNUM 

the Lecture Room was established he substituted 
for the educated dogs and industrious fleas 
"moral dramas" such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 
and "The Drunkard." In his Philadelphia 
Museum, where the prejudice against the 
theatre was greater than in New York, the Lec- 
ture Room was very popular. When "The 
Drunkard" was being played there was a tem- 
perance pledge at the box-oflSce which thousands 
signed, and in his autobiography he tells us that 
"almost every hour during the day and evening 
women could be seen bringing their husbands to 
the Museum to sign the pledge." 

Mr. Barnum had inherited from his father and 
his grandfather an irrepressible fondness for prac- 
tical jokes, and he sometimes played them upon 
the public. But he always did it in such a fash- 
ion that the public enjoyed the joke with him. 
That his humbugging did not impair the pub- 
lic faith in his commercial honesty is suffi- 
ciently established by two incidents. When he 
wanted to buy Scudder's American Museum, 
which was financially a failure but which he be- 
lieved he could make a financial success, he bor- 
rowed the necessary $15,000 on his personal 
credit, giving as security the purchased col- 
lection; and when eight years later, in order to 
carry out his contract with Jenny Lind, he had 
to deposit in the hands of her bankers in London 

9 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEINIPORARIES 

the sum of $187,500, he borrowed a considerable 
portion of the sum largely on the confidence 
that American bankers had in his commercial 
ability and his financial honesty. 

I have defined Mr. Barnum as a good-natured 
man and defined a good-natured man as one 
who desires to make other men happy. This 
is not the highest ambition of which man is 
capable, but it is a not unworthy ambition, and 
in Mr. Barnum it appeared not only in his re- 
solve to send away contented all those who came 
to his entertainments, but also in his resolve to 
make his associates and his employees sharers 
in his happiness. The cynics may say that this 
is good business. I think it is. But not every- 
one has sufiicient faith in this principle as good 
business to practise it. A slight illustration of 
Mr. Barnum's faith in it is furnished by his giv- 
ing a dollar and a half a day to the brick-laying 
tramp who only asked for a dollar a day; a bet- 
ter illustration, by his steadily increasing Tom 
Thumb's share in the profits of their joint enter- 
prise as its increasing profitableness became 
manifest. But the most striking illustration 
is that furnished by his proposal to Jenny Lind 
to change the contract between them after the 
first auction sale of tickets had taken place and 
before the first concert. This change I copy from 
Mr. Barnum's autobiography. 

10 



p. T. BARNUM 

On the Tuesday after her arrival I informed Miss Lind 
that I wished to make a slight alteration in our agreement. 
"What is it?" she asked in surprise. 

"I am convinced," I replied, "that our enterprise will 
be much more successful than either of us anticipated. I 
wish, therefore, to stipulate that you shall receive not 
only $1,000 for each concert besides all the expenses, as 
heretofore agreed on, but after taking $5,500 per night 
for expenses and my services, the balance shall be equally 
divided between us." 

Jenny looked at me with astonishment. She could not 
comprehend my proposition. After I had repeated it and 
she fully understood its import, she cordially grasped me by 
the hand, and exclaimed, "Mr. Barnum, you are a gentle- 
man of honour; you are generous; it is just as Mr. Bates 
told me; I will sing for you as long as you please; I will 
sing for you in America — in Europe — anywhere." 

Mr. Barnum ends the narrative of his engage- 
ment with her by a financial statement of the 
"total receipts, excepting of concerts devoted to 
charity." They are given in detail. We re- 
port only the totals as reported by Mr. Barnum: 

Jenny Lind's net avails of 95 concerts . . $176,675.09 
P. T. Barnum's gross receipts after paying Miss 

Lind 535,486.25 

Total receipts of 95 concerts . . . $712,161.34 

Mr. Barnum does not state what his net prof- 
its were; but as he paid all the expenses, includ- 
ing travelling expenses and hotel bills for Jenny 
Lind and the entire musical company, the amount 

11 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

to be deducted from the gross receipts must have 
been considerable. 

That Mr. Barnum recognized the human 
values as well as the commercial possibilities of 
his "natural curiosities" is evident from his re- 
lations with the famous dwarf, "General Tom 
Thumb," Mr. Barnum's own name for Charles 
Stratton, whom he discovered as a child of five 
and so trained that when the bov went some two 
years later to be exhibited in France, Mr. Bar- 
num won a judgment from the authorities that 
the "General's" presentation of various char- 
acters in costume entitled him to be counted an 
actor, and therefore liable only for the 11- 
per-cent. "theatrical license", not for the 
25-per-cent. license for "natural curiosities." 
From the European tour from which they re- 
turned in 1847, when the "little General" was 
ten years of age, Tom Thumb's father had ac- 
quired a fortune from which he settled a large 
sum upon his valuable son. Some ten years 
later, when Mr. Barnum "failed" as the result 
of an extensive real -estate development enter- 
prise, among the letters of friendly offers that 
came to him was the following: 

Jones's Hotel, Philadelphia, 

May 12, 1856. 
My dear Mr. Barnum. — I understand your friends, 
and that means "all creation," intend to get up some bene- 

n 



p. T. BARNUM 

fits for your family. Now, my dear sir, just be good 
enough to remember that I belong to that mighty crowd, 
and I must have a finger (or at least a "thumb") in that 
pie. I am bound to appear on all such occasions in some 
shape, from "Jack the Giant Killer," upstairs, to the door- 
keeper down, whichever may serve you best; and there 
are some feats that I can perform as well as any other man 
of my inches. I have just started out on my western tour, 
and have my carriage, ponies, and assistants all here, but 
I am ready to go on to New York, bag and baggage, and 
remain at Mrs. Barnum's service as long as I, in my small 
way, can be useful. Put me into any "heavy" work, if 
you like. Perhaps I cannot lift as much as some other folks, 
but just take your pencil in hand and you will see I can 
draw a tremendous load. I drew two hundred tons at a 
single pull to-day, embracing two thousand persons, whom 
I hauled up safely and satisfactorily to all parties, at one 
exhibition. Hoping that you will be able to fix up a lot of 
magnets that will attract all New York, and volunteering to 
sit on any part of the loadstone, I am, as ever, your little 
but sympathizing friend, ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ 

Although Mr. Barnum felt compelled to re- 
fuse this offer, he could hardly have forgotten 
it. When he had so far recovered himself that 
he was free to do so, he again went abroad, tak- 
ing with him the "little General," repeating the 
former successes, and cancelling his indebtedness 
at the end of four years. 

In 1862 the "General " had a country home in 
Bridgeport where he spent his "intervals of rest 
with his horses, and especially with his yacht, 

13 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

for his fondness for the water was his great pas- 
sion." On one of his trips to New York, upon 
which occasions he always visited the Museum 
and Mr. Barnum, he met a recent acquisition 
of the showman — ^Lavinia Warren, a dwarf, a 
"most inteUigent and refined young lady, well 
educated and an accomplished, beautiful, and per- 
fectly developed woman in miniature." With the 
hearty sympathy of Mr. Barnum the young peo- 
ple shortly became engaged and Miss Warren was 
released from her contract to go abroad for exlii- 
bition. Moreover, although Mr. Barnum "did 
not hesitate to seek continued advantage from the 
notoriety of the prospective marriage," when his 
offer of fifteen thousand dollars if they would post- 
pone the wedding for a month was declined, he did 
not lose his human interest with the momentary 
loss. "It was suggested to me," he writes, "that 
a small fortune in itself could be easily made out 
of the excitement. 'Let the ceremony take place 
in the Academy of Music, charge a big price for 
admission, and the citizens will come in crowds.' 
I have no manner of doubt that in this way 
twenty -five thousand dollars would easily have 
been obtained. But I had no such thought. I 
had promised to give the couple a genteel and 
graceful wedding, and I kept my word." 

The ceremony took place in Grace Church, 
in the presence of an audience of ladies and 

14 



p. T. BARNUM 

gentlemen admitted only by cards of invitation, 
even to the exclusion of a highly irate pew owner, 
who afterward wrote the rector a sharp letter 
of protest and received from him a sharp though 
perfect^ courteous and dignified reply. Numer- 
ous applications were made for tickets to wit- 
ness the ceremony and as much as sixty dollars 
was offered for a single admission; but not a 
ticket was sold, and to the charge brought by 
disgruntled critics that the marriage was a money- 
making scheme, Mr. Barnum made the following 
characteristically good-natured reply: 

"It was by no means an unnatural circum- 
stance that I should be suspected of having in- 
stigated and brought about that marriage of 
Tom Thumb with Lavinia Warren. Had I done 
this, I should at this day have felt no regrets, for 
it has proved, in an eminent degree, one of the 
'happy marriages'." 

If this were a sketch of Mr. Barnum's life, it 
would be fatally defective, for I have said noth- 
ing of his temperance activities, his patriotic 
services during the Civil War, or his battle, when 
a member of the Connecticut Legislature, against 
political corruption of a formidable description. 
But I have deliberately confined myself to a 
sketch of his professional career as Showman, 
in which he did nothing to degrade, something 
to elevate, and much to entertain his generation. 

15 



EDWIN BOOTH, INTERPRETER 

A FRIEND of mine, no longer living, con- 
servative in his theology, consistent in 
his Calvinism, once said to me some- 
thing like this: "If the actor is wholly evil, if 
there is no place in the kingdom of God for the 
actor's profession, why does God endow some 
of his children with the dramatic and mimetic 
instinct and seem to call them to the stage by an 
inward impulse as distinct as that by which he 
seems to call others of his children to the pul- 
pit?" 

The only answer I can give to that question 
is that the theatre is not wholly evil and that there 
is a place in the kingdom of God for the profession 
of the actor. No doubt there are in every one 
of the great cities some theatres that we could 
well spare and some actors we could see ban- 
ished from the stage without regret. But if it 
were possible by edict to close all theatres and 
banish all actors from American life the loss to the 
community would amount to an irreparable moral 
disaster. 

The theatre has a threefold service to render: 
it has to furnish amusement, rest, and inspiration. 

16 



EDWIN BOOTH 

We need amusement. It is an old saying 
that "All work and no play makes Jack a dull 
boy." The fathers and the mothers need it as 
well as their children. "A merry heart," says 
the proverb, "doeth good like a medicine." A 
hearty laugh is medicinal. A cooperative laugh, 
a laugh all together, promotes good fellowship. 
Sympathy in fun may be as valuable as sym- 
pathy in sorrow. A good play inspires us to 
comply with Paul's injunction: We weep with 
those that weep and rejoice with those that re- 
joice. 

We need rest. America would easily turn 
into a great factory and Americans into machine- 
like drudges, if there were not literature to take 
us out of ourselves; and the theatre is enacted 
literature. The monotony of the kitchen, the 
more monotonous monotony of the shop, would 
become deadening if there were no provision for 
occasional forgetfulness. To many Americans 
the theatre is an oasis of restful enjoyment set 
in the midst of a desert of unvarying toil. I 
suspect that my experience is not uncommon. 
Reading stimulates; a concert inspires; a play 
rests. For two hours I am passive, played upon 
by a story which drives all cares and perplexities 
out of my mind; and I come away from a clean 
and healthful play refreshed in spirit as, from a 
swim in the ocean, refreshed in body. 

17 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

But the highest service of the theatre is its 
inspirational power. Great literature is an in- 
terpreter of life; a great actor is an interpreter 
of great literature. If it was worth while for 
Shakespeare to write "The Merchant of Venice," 
it was worth while for Edwin Booth and Ma- 
dame Modjeska to interpret it. Let me explain 
by an illustration what I mean by interpretation 
of literature. 

Henry Ward Beecher was a remarkable elo- 
cutionist. He had to a very unusual degree the 
power to put himself into any mood of feeling 
that he wished to illustrate and to employ in 
its illustration the appropriate tones of voice and, 
if need be, the appropriate attitude of body. 
He was preaching once upon his favourite theme, 
the infinite pity of Jesus to sinners, when he 
stopped abruptly and said: Someone will ask 
me, did not Jesus also condemn sinners with 
wrathful indignation? That depends, he re- 
plied, upon how you interpret him. Then he 
took up his pocket Bible, which was his con- 
stant companion, and read a few verses from 
the denunciation of the Pharisees in the twenty- 
third chapter of Matthew, putting into his voice, 
and doubtless for the moment into his spirit, 
the wrathful indignation of a just judge: "Woe 
unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for 
ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which cut- 
is 



EDWIN BOOTH 

wardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full 
of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." 
Then, after a moment's pause, he read the same 
words again, but now as a lament, with tears in 
his voice, as of a mother weeping over her child. 
Then, without further comment, he went on 
with his sermon. He had in less than three 
minutes and by the actor's art given two inter- 
pretations to that passage; and since then it has 
had for me a new meaning. 

This is what I mean by saying that the great 
actor is an interpreter of great literature. It 
is narrated in the book of Nehemiah that, at a 
camp-meeting there described, the Levites "read 
in the book, in the law of God, distinctly; and 
they gave the sense, so that they understood the 
reading." If ministers could cultivate the ac- 
tor's art sufficiently to enable them to feel the 
mood of the sacred writers and interpret that 
mood by their voice, the Bible reading in church 
services would not be, as it now often is, an act 
of almost unmeaning formalism. 

Edwin Booth's character and career illustrated 
these principles. 

His father, Junius Brutus Booth, was a fa- 
mous actor. Nature's equipment impelled the 
son to follow the father on the stage. "I had 
rather," he wrote his daughter, "be an obscure 
farmer, a hayseed from Wayback, or a cabinet- 

19 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

maker, as my father advised, than the most dis- 
tinguished man on earth. But Nature cast me 
for the part she found me best fitted for, and I 
have had to play it, and must play it till the 
curtain falls." 

At first he took such parts as were assigned 
him, generally comic parts in farces and bur- 
lesques. But he was not long in graduating, 
and his wonderful success as Richard III, 
acted for the benefit of a comrade, in which 
he showed the advantage of studies quietly 
pursued, introduced him at once to a first 
rank among the actors of his day. This early 
success was partly due doubtless to an in- 
herited dramatic talent and to his early com- 
panionship with his father, but there are abun- 
dant indications in his daughter's charming 
biographical sketch and in the letters she has pub- 
lished that from the first a religious impulse in- 
spired him; that the following sentences penned 
to a friend expressed,not the fleeting impulse of the 
moment, but the dominating principle of his life: 
"I cannot help but believe that there is suflScient 
importance in my art to interest them still ; that 
to a higher influence than the world believes I 
am moved by I owe the success I have achieved." 

This spiritual faith carried him through experi- 
ences of great personal sorrow and professional 
disappointment. His wife, to whom he was de- 

20 



EDWIN BOOTH 

votedly attached, died, leaving him to be both 
father and mother to the daughter two years 
old. Writing to the clergyman who had per- 
formed the marriage ceremony and had written 
him a letter of sympathy, Mr. Booth said: "You 
have been pleased to mention my art and to ex- 
press the hope that I may be spared to serve it 
long and faithfully; if it be His will, I bow be- 
fore it meekly as I now bear the terrible affliction 
He has seen jBt to lay upon me; but I cannot re- 
press an inward hope that I may soon rejoin 
her who, next to God, was the object of my de- 
votion." Two years later the sorrow still re- 
mained, but his faith in immortality and in his 
art as a divinely inspired service had grown 
clearer and stronger: "Two years ago to-day," 
he writes to a friend, "I last saw May alive! 
But, my dear friend, a light from heaven has 
settled fairly and fully in my soul, and I regard 
death, as God intended we should understand it, 
as the breaking of eternal daylight and a birth- 
day of the soul. I feel that all my actions have 
been and are influenced by her whose love is to 
me the strength and wisdom of my spirit. 
Whatever I may do of serious import, I regard 
it as a performance of a sacred duty I owe to all 
that is pure and honest in my nature — a duty 
to the very religion of my heart." 

Nine years later the theatre that he had built 

21 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

and in and by which he had helped to raise the 
dramatic standards in New York City to some- 
thing which should at least approximate his 
ideals, had failed and he was bankrupt. "My 
disappointment is great, to be sure," he wrote 
to a friend, "but I have the consciousness of 
having tried to do what I deemed to be my 
duty. Since the talent God has given me can 
be made available for no other purpose, I be- 
lieve the object to which I devote it to be 
worthy of self-sacrifice." 

This spirit of consecration of what he be- 
lieved was a divinely given power to a divinely 
ordained purpose inspired and guided him 
through the ordinary experiences of his life. A 
clergyman once wrote him asking if he could not 
be admitted to his theatre by a side or rear door, 
as he preferred to run no risk of being seen by 
any of his parishiorl^rs; to whom Mr. Booth re- 
plied, "There is no door in my theatre through 
which God cannot see." The theatre while it 
continued under Booth's control was maintained 
as one should be which lay open to God's sight. 
Mr. William Winter, whose dramatic ideals were 
unquestionably high, says of it that its affairs 
"were conducted in a steadfast spirit of sympa- 
thy with w^hat is pure and good in dramatic 
art." And he quotes two testimonies in support 
of this statement: one from Joseph Jefferson: 



EDWIN BOOTH 

"Booth's Theatre is conducted as a theatre 
should be — hke a church behind the curtain and 
hke a counting-house in front of it," and one 
from Dion Boucicault: "I have been in every 
theatre, I think, in civihzed Christendom, and 
Booth's is the only theatre that I have ever seen 
properly managed." 

The prevailing attitude of the Church toward 
the theatre and the acting profession was one 
of bitter hostility in 1877, much modified since; 
but it elicited from Mr. Booth no word of ill 
temper or counter-hostility. The only response 
to that hostility which I have been able to find 
in his correspondence is in a letter to a clerical 
friend, who was an exception to the general 
rule among the clergy and to whom he wrote: 
"I am glad that I have been the cause 
of so much pleasure to you and rejoice in 
your strong charity againsi prejudice. If the 
Church would teach discrimination between the 
true and the false in my profession, instead of 
condemning both as worthless, to say the least, 
the stage would serve the pulpit as a loyal 
subject, and both go shoulder to shoulder not 
with 'frowning brow to brow' through the 
fight." 

His life was in some respects a lonely one. 
How lonely is indicated by the one incident in 
which his life and mine came together. Heartily 

23 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

sympathizing with his endeavour to secure an 
elevating and inspiring drama in New York, I 
wrote to ask of him an article on the subject, and 
received in reply the following letter, which was 
published with his consent in the then ''Christian 
Union' : 

Baltimore, April 18, 1878. 
Lyman Abbott, Esq. 
Dear Sir — 

On my arrival here I found your favour of 1st inst. 
but have been prevented from answering it until to-day. 

Having no literary ability whatever I must decline 
your flattering invitation; nor do I know how to aid the 
worthy cause you advocate; could I do so, be assured it 
should he freely done. 

My knowledge of the modern drama is so very meagre 
that I never permit my wife or daughter to witness a 
play without previously ascertaining its character. This 
is the method I pursue; I can suggest no other — unless 
it might be by means of a "dramatic censor" whose taste 
or judgment might, however, be frequently at fault. 

If the management of theatres could be denied to specu- 
lators and placed in the hands of actors who value their 
reputations and respect their calling, the stage would at 
least afford healthy recreation, if not, indeed, a whole- 
some stimulus to the exercise of noble sentiments. But 
while the theatre is permitted to be a mere shop for gain — 
open to every huckster of immoral gimcracks, there is no 
other way to discriminate between the pure and base than 

through the experience of others. 

Truly yours. 

Edwin Booth. 
24 



EDWIN BOOTH 

There were a few actors who shared Mr. 
Booth's spirit and to whom acting was truly an 
art. But the stage was passing under the con- 
trol of money-making managers, and money- 
making and artistic ambitions never go well 
together. Mr. Booth was not a good business 
man, and lack of good business management, 
not of good dramatic management, caused the 
failure of his theatre. "Had I given proper 
attention to my doUar-and-cent dealings with 
men," he writes to his daughter, "I would now 
be at least a millionaire, perhaps doubly so; but 
I never considered that side of the question, 
taking from managers just what they offered." 
He defines in his letters his ambition, nowhere 
perhaps more clearly than in this pregnant 
sentence: "He [Betterton] is my ideal of an 
actor, both on and off the stage. He aimed at 
truth in his art and lived it at home." Suc- 
cesses always stimulated Booth to new effort. 
"Life," he wrote to his daughter, "is a great 
big spelling book, and on every page we turn, the 
words grow harder to understand the meaning 
of. But there is a meaning, and when the last 
leaf flops over we'll know the whole lesson by 
heart." He kept up his studies, professional 
and other, to the very end of his life, and this 
included a study of himself as impersonator. 
"When I am en wrapt in a character I am im- 

25 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

personating," he wrote, "there seems to be an- 
other and a distinct individuahty, another me 
sitting in judgment on myself." This judgment 
was not always encouraging. Mr. Bispham 
in his autobiography tells us that one night 
when Booth seemed to have attained the 
very pinnacle of his powers a friend went round 
to congratulate him on his great success and 
"found Booth with his head upon his hands in 
the deepest dejection from which not even the 
praise of his old friend could arouse him, dis- 
gusted at having given so miserable a per- 
formance." 

From this double consciousness Booth seems 
never to have escaped. "I believe," he wi'ites, 
"you understand how completely I *ain't here' 
most of the time. It's an awful thing to be 
somebody else all the while." Reserved he 
was, self -res trained, but not internally placid, 
and never self -conceited. Self-control to such 
a man is not the easy virtue it is to simple 
natures. He had inherited the drink appetite 
from his father; conquered it completely, but 
not without a hard battle. Nor was that his 
only struggle. The very ability to interpret 
different human passions was the mark of a 
composite character. "Much of my life's 
struggle," he wrote his daughter, "has been 
with myself, and the pain I have endured in 

26 



EDWIN BOOTH 

overcoming and correcting the evils of my un- 
trained disposition has been very great." 

I must stop. This sketch has already over- 
run the limits I had set myself. Readers who 
wish an analysis of Mr. Booth's art upon the 
stage will find it in William Winter's *'Life of Ed- 
win Booth." I have wished in this sketch to in- 
troduce the man to readers to whom he is known 
only as an actor. For the re-reading of Mr. 
Booth's letters has not only reawakened my 
admiration for this great interpreter of the great- 
est literature, but also a new sense of indignation 
that so pure and brave a man should have been 
left to fight his battle for a purer theatre with so 
little sympathy and help from the Christian 
Church and the Christian ministry. 



27 



THE SMILEY BROTHERS, LOVERS OF 

HOSPITALITY 

IN THE State of New York, running ap- 
proximately parallel to the Catskill range 
of mountains, is a long and narrow range 
with elevations varying from six hundred feet to 
twelve or fifteen hundred feet above the valleys 
on either side. This is known as the Sha- 
wangunk Mountain, locally pronounced Shon- 
gurn. At a point in this range, about fifteen 
miles from the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, 
is a spot of peculiar romantic beauty. A cliff 
here rises about one hundred feet above the 
mountain edge and at the foot of this cliff is a 
small lake perhaps half a mile long and an 
eighth of a mile wide, which bears the Indian 
name of Mohonk (Lake of the Sky). At this 
point the mountain is composed of enormous 
rocks piled on each other in great confusion, as 
though some grotesque Thor had thrown them 
up in sheer joyous exhibition of his strength, 
leaving them to lie there as they had fallen. It 
is reported that adventurous boys, in times past, 
have made their way down through the crev- 
ices of these rocks from the summit to the val- 

£8 



THE SMILEY BROTHERS 

ley below. A geological friend of mine said to 
a local resident, acting as his guide: "I wonder 
by what great upheaval Nature produced this 
wonderful rock pile." The guide rebuked his 
ignorance: "What!" said he, "have you never 
read how at the crucifixion the earth did quake 
and the rocks were rent?" He regarded the 
earthquake at the crucifixion as a world-wide 
phenomenon as some scholars in past times re- 
garded the deluge as a world -enveloping flood. 

In 1869 there stood on the shore of this lake 
and under the shadow of this cliff a cabaret with 
a bar-room, a dance hall, and ten bedrooms with 
bunks for beds, and straw mattresses and one 
quilt each for bedding. When a visitor de- 
manded dinner, the Irish boy would catch a 
chicken, kill it in front of the house, and pass it 
over to the woman to cook." There were some 
fish in the lake and some small game in the 
woods. How far the fish and the game, how far 
the bar-room and its contents were the attraction 
for the picnic parties that patronized the place, 
the reader must be left to judge. 

One day in 1869 Mr. Alfred Smiley, who was 
then living near Poughkeepsie, took a day for 
an excursion to the top of the mountain to see 
the lake, which had already acquired a consid- 
erable local reputation. The natural beauty 
of the scene captivated him; he persuaded his 

29 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

twin brother Albert, then conducting a very- 
successful school at Providence, Rhode Island, 
to come to Poughkeepsie and share with him 
the joy of his discovery. As a result of that 
visit, Mr. Albert Smiley put all the money he 
had, with a considerable sum that he borrowed, 
into a purchase of the place with approximately 
three hundred acres of wild mountain and forest 
land. The original proprietor doubtless con- 
sidered himself lucky to find a purchaser fool 
enough to take this unpromising place off his 
hands. He is quoted as saying: "I suppose 
that the Creator made everything for some use; 
but what in the world he ever made this pizen 
laurel for I can't see. It never grows big enough 
for firewood and the cattle won't eat it." 

From the beginning the brothers Smiley be- 
lieved that there were people in America who 
wanted to get away from the excitements of 
society, as well as from the entanglements of 
business. From the first, therefore, the new hotel 
was administered on Quaker principles and per- 
vaded by a Quaker spirit. When I visited it in 
1872, Mr. Albert Smiley was still carrying on the 
school at Providence; the hotel was in charge 
of his brother Alfred. The bar-room and the 
dance hall had been abolished; beds had taken 
the place of bunks; a reading room had been sub- 
stituted for the bar-room; and entertainments 

30 



THE SMILEY BROTHERS 

provided by the guests themselves had been sub- 
stituted for the dance hall. The house had been 
enlarged to accommodate about forty guests ; the 
atmosphere of the house was that of a home, not 
that of a cabaret; there was a service of worship 
in the parlour on Sundays and morning prayers 
for such as cared to attend them during the week. 
It was understood that cards, dancing, and drink- 
ing were prohibited; but there were not then, 
and there never have been, printed rules or 
regulations; the prohibition is enforced by com- 
mon consent, and it is very rarely the case that 
even to-day, in a hotel with accommodations for 
upward of four hundred, any other enforcement 
is required. 

The beauty of the place and the home at- 
mosphere of the hotel so impressed me that the 
following year I returned with an artist to ob- 
tain sketches for an illustrated article which was 
published in the Illustrated Christian Weekly, 
of which I was then editor. 

Wlien I next visited Lake Mohonk, in 1884, 
Mr. Albert Smiley had left his school and had 
come to make Lake Mohonk his home. The 
boarding house had become a hotel capable of 
accommodating some three hundred guests; the 
estate had been increased by successive pur- 
chases to one of over a thousand acres; miles of 
roads had been built within the estate and in- 

31 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORAEIES 

numerable footpaths had been opened through 
the woods and among the rocks; Mr. Alfred 
Smiley had finally left Providence and changed 
the profession of teacher for that of hotel 
keeper. Mr. Albert Smiley had purchased a 
similar estate seven miles distant upon the same 
range and erected a hotel upon the shore of a 
lake which gave its name of Minnewaska to the 
twin enterprise. 

Who that has ever read "Nicholas Nickleby'* 
did not regard the Cheeryble Brothers as a pretty 
fancy of an often extravagantly fanciful novel- 
ist? "What was the amazement of Nicholas 
when his conductor advanced and exchanged his 
warm greeting with another old gentleman, the 
very type and model of himself — the same face, 
thesamefigure,thesamecoat, waistcoat, and neck- 
cloth, the same breeches and gaiters — nay, there 
was the very same white hat hanging against 
the wall!" But it is an old saying that fact is 
stranger than fiction; which is only another way 
of saying, cynics to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing, that life furnishes illustrations of ideas which 
surpass those of the novelist. The portrait of 
the Smiley brothers is best given in the words 
of Mr. Albert Smiley: 

When my brother Alfred and I were born we were so 
much ahke that our mother tied ribbons on either our arms 
or legs, I do not remember which, to distinguish us. 

32 



THE SMILEY BROTHERS 

None of our neighbours or teachers knew us apart; we 
always worked together, walked together, slept together, 
had measles, mumps, and whooping cough together; never 
had a single article of clothing or money or anything else 
separate for twenty-seven years. In the morning we 
jumped into the first suit of clothes that came in our way, 
no matter who wore it the day before. All our studies 
and reading were from one set of books, reading and study- 
ing simultaneously. Until we were twenty-seven years 
old, when my brother married, we had never had anything 
to be called "mine," but always "ours." At my brother's 
marriage we had to divide clothing and some other things, 
but till his death, four years since, we had many of our in- 
terests in common. 

In 1884 this identity of appearance still con- 
tinued. Strangers could not easily distinguish 
between the brothers when they were together, 
and when they were not together never could 
tell which was Albert and which was Alfred. 
Even the brothers could not always tell. They 
once made an appointment to meet in a hotel in 
New York. Albert arrived first; walking down 
a corrider he saw his brother approaching; he 
reached out his hand to grasp the outstretched 
hand of his brother, with the greeting, "Are 
you here already?" and found that he was ad- 
dressing his own image in a mirror. 

They were as much alike in spirit and tem- 
perament as in appearance. The same simplic- 
ity that had characterized the boarding house 

33 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

with forty guests characterized the twin hotels. 
The same piety characterized both men, the 
same hberty under law characterized both 
hotels. If I write here only of Mr. Albert 
Smiley it is because he is the only one I at all 
intimately knew. 

Some men are distinguished from their fellows 
by the possession of one characteristic in an ab- 
normal degree. I was told a few years ago of a 
little girl, not yet in her teens, who came into 
the laboratory of her scientific grandfather with 
an insect for his inspection. "He is a very 
naughty fly," she said, "he keeps biting me." 
When she opened her fist she disclosed a 
wasp. She was a born scientist. Investigation 
was to her a passion. But some men are made 
great by the possession of seemingly contra- 
dictory qualities harmoniously working in a 
well-balanced character. Such was the greatness 
of Mr. Albert Smiley. He was a man of vision. 
At the first sight of Lake Mohonk he perceived 
the possibilities of a great estate; but he was also 
a man of practical judgment and did not retire 
from his successful school until he had laid up 
enough money to take with safety the hazard 
of abandoning a profession with which he was 
familiar for one of which he knew nothing. He 
was cautious, always looked before he leaped; 
but when he had looked he did not hesitate to 

34 



THE SMILEY BROTHERS 

leap. When he had once definitely formed 
his purpose to provide for persons like-minded 
with himself a true summer rest, he gave him- 
self without reserve to the achievement of that 
ideal. Whatever interfered with it he regarded 
as an obstacle to be, if possible, overcome. 
When a railway proposed to build a branch to 
the foot of the mountain he discouraged the 
proposal; it might bring him customers, but it 
would hazard the repose that he wished to pro- 
vide. When an inn just beyond the bounds of 
his estate threatened that repose, he bought the 
inn. He was a lover of liberty; and ordered 
liberty is a condition of repose of the spirit. 
Therefore, he put up few signs that indicated re- 
straints on liberty. The only such signs to be 
seen are some scattered through the woods to 
protect the trees and flowers and one at every 
entrance of his grounds forbidding the use of 
automobiles. 

But when enforcement of the common law of 
his estate was required he did not lack the 
courage to enforce it. A wealthy guest came 
with a large party prepared to spend a consider- 
able time and a great deal of money, and as- 
sumed that, because of his patronage, the hotel 
would not enforce against him the rule pro- 
hibiting the use of liquor, and he brought down 
his bottle with him to the dinner table. Mr. 

35 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

Smiley said nothing until the dinner was over 
and then notified his would-be guest that the 
rooms assigned to him were no longer to be at 
his service; that he was, in short, an *' undesir- 
able citizen." Another man of the same type, 
disregarding a sign at the gateway that auto- 
mobiles were not allowed, drove up in his tour- 
ing car to the door. Mr. Smiley ordered the 
automobile to be driven by a special road to the 
nearest entrance. After dinner, he provided a 
carriage to carry the unwelcome guest and his 
family to the same entrance and refused to take 
any pay for the dinner that the guests had re- 
ceived. 

Such incidents get promptly into wide cir- 
culation and serve quite adequately as law en- 
forcements. When depredations were commit- 
ted by barbarians, possessing the appearance 
but not the reality of civilization, he neither 
submitted to the destruction of his property nor 
issued new prohibitions to protect it, nor called 
on the officers of the law for protection. He 
appealed, and not unsuccessfully, to the con- 
science of the community and to the depredators 
themselves. He provided a Picnic Lodge with 
grounds surrounding it for the free use of picnic 
parties, and then sent a courteous letter to the 
newspaper press in which he narrated some of 
the abuses that had been perpetrated, and 

36 



THE SMILEY BROTHERS 

prescribed certain rules which all picnic parties 
should observe. The letter was very widely 
published and editorially commended. "I must 
ask," he said, "my friends and neighbours and all 
who bring or send parties here to see that no 
damage is done to property of any kind," and 
he added, "unless the few can be prevented from 
damaging property it will become positively 
necessary to exclude all picnic parties from 
the estate." This appeal to the public and the 
picnickers themselves was suflScient; at least in 
my riding and walking about the grounds to-day 
[June, 1921] I see no signs of depredations 
against which in 1906 Mr. Smiley very justly 
protested. 

Since the financial success of Mr. Smiley's ex- 
perience has proved that he correctly inter- 
preted a before unrecognized demand, other ho- 
tels formed as his plan and inspired by his spirit 
have been successfully established, and many 
hotels which have neither vanished card play- 
ing and dancing from their parlour nor provided 
libraries for their guests during the week nor 
religious services on the Sabbath, have become 
less noisily gay and more quietly comfortable. 
At the same time summer camps in increasing 
numbers furnish rural recreations and the sim- 
ple life to an increasing number of toilers from 
the towns and cities who want something bet- 

37 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

ter for summer recreation than a mere change 
of place in which tp continue their city amuse- 
ments. But that Mr. Smiley's experiment in 
1871 was a surprising invocation is indicated 
by the following incident for which I am in- 
debted to a western correspondent. 

A Kentucky tourist travelling in California 
came upon Mr. Smiley's beautiful winter home 
in Riverside, created by his genius out of a 
desert land, and the following conversation en- 
sued between the Kentuckian and the driver 
of his carriage: 

Tourist. That's a beautiful place. Whom 
does it belong to? 

Driver. A Mr. Smiley. 

Tourist. It must have cost a lot. How did 
he make his money.'* 

Driver. By a queer kind of hotel in New 
York. 

Tourist. What kind of a hotel .f* 

Driver. Well, he didn't have any bar, or 
allow any wine to be served on the table; they 
didn't allow card playing, or dancing in the 
parlour; guests were not received nor taken 
away on Sunday; they have family prayers in 
the parlour every morning and church services 
every Sunday. 

Tourist. Where in hell can they get patrons 
for such a hotel .^^ 

38 



THE SMILEY BROTHERS 

Driver. They do not get their patrons from 
that region. 

Under the administration of Mr. Albert Smiley 
and his younger brother Daniel — who with his 
wife have been active partners with Mr. Albert 
Smiley since 1890 and are with their sons carry- 
ing on the enterprise in the same spirit since the 
death of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Smiley — the Lake 
Mohonk House has been more than a home of rest 
for the overworked and the brain-weary; it has 
been a nesting place for reform movements. 

Miss M. P. Follet, a few years ago, published 
a notable book entitled "The New State." 
It might better have been entitled "The New 
Democracy." The cardinal doctrine of this 
book may be concisely stated thus : Democracy 
is not merely government by the majority. It 
is creative. By an interchange of conflicting 
views in a spirit of mutual respect a new view is 
created which embodies some elements of these 
conflicting opinions, but not all the elements of 
any one of them. The Indian Conference initi- 
ated by Mr. Albert Smiley in 1884 at Lake Mo- 
honk affords the best illustration of "The New 
Democracy" I have ever seen. 

The success of the earlier meetings was such 
that when the Spanish-American War brought 
under the protectorate of the United States 
Porto Rico and the Philippines, the Indian 

39 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

conferences were broadened so as to include 
"all Dependent Peoples" Later a second series 
of conferences were called to consider what 
means, if any, were practicable to substitute an 
appeal to reason for the appeal to force as a 
means of settling international differences. The 
Conference possessed no formal organization . The 
attendants were not delegates but invited guests 
of Mr. Smiley. From twelve at the first con- 
ference in 1884 they grew by natural accretion 
to three hundred before 1913. They included 
men and women of every variety of tempera- 
ment and opinion. Roman Catholics, Protestants, 
and Jews, High Churchmen and Friends, Re- 
publicans and Democrats, government oflScials 
and newspaper critics, Radicals and Conser- 
vatives met to engage in a perfectly free Forum, 
not to win a victory over each other, but to com- 
prehend each other. Factions were difficult and 
factional victories were impossible. For from the 
first it was agreed that no opinion should ever 
be affirmed to be the opinion of the Conference 
except by unanimity. A platform committee 
was appointed at the opening of the Conference; 
it watched the debate, framed a platform in- 
tended to express a conclusion to which all could 
agree, and reserved all disputed questions for 
subsequent consideration. When, therefore, a 
committee from this conference went to Wash- 

40 



THE SMILEY BROTHERS 

ington with its well-thought-out policy, it had 
a real political power, because its platform was 
the expressed opinion of Roman Catholics and 
Protestants, Reformers in the East and dwellers 
on the Western Border, Ideahsts from the library, 
and practical experts from the field. I remember 
one visit we, as a committee, made to Washing- 
ton just after Mr. Cleveland's election and his 
saying to me afterward: ''I had the idea when 
I took the Presidency that we ought to put all 
the Indians in one reservation under one con- 
trol, but the friends of the Indians sat down on 
that proposition with such determination that 
I gave it up." 

I do not believe that any one influence has had 
so much to do with producing the revolution 
wrought in our Indian policy in the last quarter 
of a century as the influence exercised by the 
late Indian Conference at Mohonk, and I am 
11 sure that the proposal to establish an Inter- 

national Supreme Court, somewhat analogous 
in its nature and functions to the United States 
Supreme Court, first came from the Lake Mo- 
honk Conference on International Arbitration 
in 1895. It would probably have been adopted 
nearly ten years ago by the civilized powers if it 
had not been for the jealousy of some of the 
South American republics and the bitter hos- 
tihty of Germany. It is not improbable that 

41 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEjVIPORARIES 

the apparently approaching era of international 
peace incited the German military party to 
undertake the subjugation of Europe under a 
universal German Empire before it was fully 
prepared for so insane an attempt. 

Mr. Albert Smiley selected with care the 
guests who attended these conferences. He ap- 
pointed the chairman and, in consultation with 
others called together for that purpose, selected 
the Business Committee, and he always attended 
the morning and evening meetings of the Con- 
ference. The afternoons were set apart for 
drives and walks and other forms of recreation. 
On both the Indian and the Arbitration Con- 
ferences there were radical differences of opinion, 
perfect freedom of expression, often warm, and 
sometimes hot, debates; but I do not think that 
parliamentary courtesy was ever violated or that 
any speaker was ever called to order, except oc- 
casionally for over-running his allotted time. 
The combination of freedom and courtesy in the 
speeches at these conferences must have struck 
any one accustomed to attend meetings for 
public debate whether held by politicians, ec- 
clesiastics, or reformers. That this was largely 
due to the personal influence of our host I am 
sure we all felt, though he rarely took any ac- 
tive part in the debates. From some men an 
indescribable influence exudes ; other men as vir- 

42 



THE SMILEY BROTHERS 

tuous and as able are without that peculiar in- 
fluence. I can no more understand it than I 
can understand why some flowers are fragrant 
and others are not. Mr. Smiley was a born 
peacemaker, making peace not so much by what 
he said as by what he was. 

I attended nearly all the Indian Conferences 
at Lake Mohonk and most of the Arbitration 
Conferences, and, as a journalistic historian of 
current events, have traced their subsequent 
influence on public opinion and on national and 
international action. In my judgment, the world 
owes much more than it knows to the Smiley 
Brothers, and especially to Mr. Albert Smiley's 
skill in inspiring and directing team work. Be- 
fore Mr. Smiley died in 1912, a large proportion 
of the Boards of Commerce throughout the 
United States had sent representatives to the 
International Arbitration Conference and had 
carried back to their various communities the 
plan for an international tribunal proposed by 
Mr. Everett Edward Hale* at the first of those 
conferences and adopted by the Conference with- 
out a dissenting voice. The growing recognition 
in this country of the duty of service which ad- 
vanced races owe to dependent races, and the 
growing determination in this country to find 

*Iii the silhouette entitled "Everett Edward Hale, an American Abou Ben Adhem," the 
reader will find further information respecting his proposal and advocacy for a Supreme 
Court of the Nations. 

43 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

in law, interpreted by an international tribunal, 
a better method for securing international 
justice than can be found in an army equipped 
with warlike instruments, found at Lake Mo- 
honk their first formal and forcible expression 
and there received their first equipment of 
power. 



44 



JOHN B. GOUGH, APOSTLE OF TEMPER- 
ANCE 

IN APRIL, 1840, the Rev. Matthew Hale 
Smith dehvered a temperance lecture in 
Baltimore. Two members of a drinking 
club which was accustomed to meet in a tavern 
in that city were appointed, probably in jest, to 
attend and bring b^ck a report to their comrades. 
On their report a hot debate ensued. The in- 
terference of the landlord added fuel to the 
flames. As a result, six of the members formed 
a temperance society on the spot, which they 
entitled the Washington Total Abstinence 
Society. A year or two later John B. Gough, 
then apparently a confirmed inebriate, was by 
this total-abstinence movement rescued from 
self-destruction, and at once gave himself to the 
rescue of others. 

He was born in 1827 in England, of humble 
parentage; was apprenticed at twelve years of 
age to a family migrating to America; entered 
the bookbinder's trade; took to the stage as a 
vaudeville performer; fell into bad habits, in- 
creased by despair on the death of his wife and 
infant child; had two attacks of delirium tre- 

45 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEIVIPORARIES 

mens; by a kind word from a stranger was in- 
terested in temperance reform, signed the pledge, 
and began his real life — the life of an apostle of 
temperance. He brought into his new life the 
arts of the actor acquired in the theatre, and was 
at once a favourite speaker in the temperance 
meetings held in district schoolhouses, public 
halls, and sometimes, although at iSrst rarely, 
in churches. 

He married again. His wife brought him those 
staying and steadying qualities which this impul- 
sive, ardent, sensitive orator sorely needed. His 
newly acquired moral earnestness gave to him 
the artistic quality of sincerity and reality which 
the vaudeville performer had not possessed. 
He united with the Church and brought into the 
total-abstinence movement a Christian spirit 
which at first it had lacked. He early made 
enthusiastic friends; but he had also to 
encounter bitter, unscrupulous, and astute 
enemies. They concealed their enmity under 
a guise of hospitality. Twice he fell under his 
old temptations — once a physician's prescription 
awoke the old appetite, once he was drugged. 
From both falls he recovered, and by both falls 
his hatred of drink was intensified, his power to 
combat it was strengthened. 

When I first knew him, this period of conflict 
was wholly in the past; but it was a past that 

46 



JOHN B. GOUGH 

he never forgot, and never could forget. He told 
me once that he never came into a roomful of 
company that he did not think, "These people 
are saying to themselves, Here comes the man 
who has twice had delirium tremens," and that 
he never dared take communion when alcoholic 
wine was used lest the fragrance of the wine 
should be too much for him. 

But he carried with him none of the marks of 
his upbringing; no vulgarities and no coarseness 
of speech, no lack of courtesy in behaviour. He 
was a cultivated gentleman, able to grace any 
social circle, and the best social circles in Eng- 
land and America were opened to him. He was 
one of the very few absolute total abstainers I 
have ever known. He never touched wine or 
pretended to touch it at weddings or receptions; 
never tasted it at the sacrament; never used it 
as a medicine. He was the best story-teller I 
have ever known and told stories with the same 
dramatic impersonation at the dinner table as 
on the platform. Of them he had an inex- 
haustible supply, because, although he was 
always drawing from his reservoir, he was also al- 
ways replenishing it. The Lecture Lyceum 
was in a decline; Chautauqua had not yet been 
born; the Y. M. C. A. was still in its youth. But 
John B. Gough never failed to draw. He no 
longer confined himself to temperance, but I 

47 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEIMPORARIES 

doubt whether he ever lectured on any theme 
that he did not introduce some reference to 
temperance into the lecture. On one of my 
visits to him at his country home a few miles out 
from Worcester he took me over his farm and 
showed me half a score or more of cattle of a 
special breed. "Can you make this farm pay.'^" 
I asked him. "Pay!" he exclaimed. "Pay! 
It takes eight months of lecturing as hard as I 
can lecture to earn the money which my wife 
has to have in order to run this farm." 

He was a consistent Puritan. If I did not 
fear being misunderstood, I would say he was an 
Old Testament Christian. He was for himself 
a very strict constructionist of the Old Testa- 
ment laws. He spent eight months of the year 
on an itinerant lecture tour, but he would never 
travel on Sunday. I believe he would never 
ride in a horse car on Sunday. Does not the 
Fourth Commandment say: "Thou shalt not 
do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daugh- 
ter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, 
nor thy cattle"? To ride in a horse car is to 
make a servant and a horse work; therefore he 
would not ride. But, unlike some Puritans, he 
never attempted to impose his conscience on 
another. He was strict with himself, liberal 
with others. In this regard he was unlike many 
of us who are more inclined to be liberal in 

48 



JOHN B. GOUGH 

judging for ourselves and strict in judging for 
others. 

He was in Edinburgh one Sunday (he him- 
self told me this anecdote, and I do not think it 
has been before in print) and heard Doctor Finney 
preach on the seventh of Romans: "For that 
which I do I allow not; for what I would, that 
do I not; but what I hate, that do I." The ser- 
mon produced a profound impression on Mr. 
Gough's sensitive nature. The next morning he 
called on Doctor Finney at his hotel, was shown 
to his room, and, with characteristic direct- 
ness, went straight to his point. 

"Doctor Finney," said he, "I am Mr. Gough. 
I heard you preach yesterday morning; and I am 
afraid that I am living in the seventh of Ro- 
mans." 

With equally characteristic directness Doctor 
Finney met his visitor. 

"Let us pray," said he; and knelt down at his 
chair. Mr. Gough knelt also. After a fervent 
prayer for his visitor's emancipation from the 
law Doctor Finney called on Mr. Gough to 
pray. 

Mr. Gough. I can't. Doctor Finney. 

Dr. Finney. Pray, Mr. Gough. 

Mr. Gough. I can't, Doctor Finney. 

Dr. Finney (with renewed emphasis). Pray, 
Mr. Gough. 

49 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORAKIES 

Mr. Gough. I can't, Doctor Finney; and, 
what is more, I won't. 

Dr. Finney. O Lord, have mercy on this 
wiry Httle sinner. 

What was said in the conversation that fol- 
lowed I do not know. The incident is worth re- 
cording because it illustrates one distinguishing 
feature in Mr. Gough's character — his absolute 
sincerity. Wlien he said, "I cannot pray," he 
spoke the literal truth. A sincerer man than 
he I have never known. He was incapable 
of pretense. The emotion that he did not 
feel he could not utter. This was one element, 
perhaps the most important element of his power 
as an orator. Because what he said he always 
himself felt, he compelled his audience to feel it 
with him. He was always real. Even in his 
impersonations he was for the moment the in- 
dividual he impersonated. 

At the time of which I am writing the tem- 
perance army existed in two wings — the legal 
and the moral suasion. The leaders of the one 
sought by law to prohibit the sale of liquor; 
the leaders of the other sought to dissuade the 
drinker from continuing to use it. Mr. Gough 
belonged to the latter wing. He was essentially 
a Christian evangelist. He characterized the 
temperance movement as a "Christian enter- 
prise"; he sought, and not in vain, the coopera- 

50 



JOHN B. GOUGH 

tion of the Christian clergy and the Christian 
churches; he appealed to the sleeping pride in 
man, which the most degraded rarely entirely 
lose, and he often roused it to self-assertion. At 
the close of one of his meetings the most 
notorious drunkard in the town arose and, 
pulling a bottle out of his pocket, said: "Mr. 
Gough, those young men in the gallery gave me 
this bottle and offered me half a dollar to drink 
your very good health at the close of your 
lecture. But you have told me that I am a 
man, and I believe I am"; and he broke the 
bottle in pieces then and there, signed the pledge 
— and kept it. 

If Mr. Gough treated the "drunken Jakes" 
in every community as men, he also treated 
genteel and reputable drunkenness as a sin. He 
condemned it, not because it always leads to 
poverty, disease, and crime, for it does not; but 
because it always does lead to a loss of self- 
control ; and if self-control is not the foundation 
of all the virtues, no virtue can be exercised 
without it. I wrote to him once inviting him 
to deliver an address at a Congregational Club 
in New York City, and received the following 
reply : 

I am glad that the subject of Temperance is to be the 
topic of discussion and I would have gladly occupied a few 
minutes in the expression of some thoughts on the subject 

51 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

before such an audience. I fear we do not sufficiently 
recognize the importance of a more strict definition of the 
meaning of the term drunkenness or intemperance. We 
are apt to decide that drunkards are those only who beat 
their wives, neglect their children, and outrage the de- 
cencies of life ; who love filth and are wedded to all abomi- 
nations, moral and physical. Are there not men and 
women who are able to maintain a decent or respectable 
appearance, who are really drunkards as essentially as the 
poor victim who rolls in the gutter? Only differing in de- 
gree. A man who prays louder or with more apparent 
unction under the influence of intoxicating stimulants is 
as drunk as the man who blasphemes under the same in- 
fluence, or he who slobbers in his silly maudlin affection 
as he who beats his wife, &c. 

These two incidents illustrate the spirit that 
always animated Mr. Gough. His primary 
object was the redemption of the individual; 
the social betterment of the community took a 
second place in his customary thinking. But 
though he rarely spoke in advocacy of legal 
measures of any kind — high license, local option, 
or prohibition — he was too good a strategist to 
criticize his co-workers in a common enterprise. 
The prohibitionists were not always as wise. 
With that intolerance that has too often char- 
acterized radical reformers from the days of the 
ancient Pharisees, some of them sneered and a 
few of them bitterly condemned the moral-sua- 
sionists. This led to one of the most dramatic 
incidents in Mr. Gough's dramatic career. 

52 



JOHN B. GOUGH 

In 1857 — I believe I have the date right — 
Neal Dow, the author of the Maine Law, was 
about visiting England to take part in a pro- 
hibition campaign in that country. At that 
time the prohibition movement in the United 
States was suffering a relapse. Mr. Gough in 
a private letter to a friend stated the facts. 
"The cause in this country," he wrote, "is in 
a depressed state. The Maine Law is a dead 
letter everywhere — more liquor sold than I ever 
knew before in Massachusetts — and in the other 
states it is about as bad." At the same time 
he commended Neal Dow and referred to him 
for further information. "I see," he said, "that 
Neal Dow is to be in England. I am glad. You 
will all like him; he is a noble man, a faithful 
worker. He can tell better than any other man 
the state of the Maine Law movement here." 

There is no doubt that Mr. Gough's statement 
was true. But the radical reformer does not 
wish the truth told if it will hurt his cause. He 
is generally quite sure that nothing can be true 
which will hurt his cause. Wlien a little later 
Mr. Gough landed in Liverpool, he found the 
prohibition circles in England in a fever of ex- 
citement which the publication of this private 
letter had caused. That he was a liar was the 
least of the charges preferred against him. Mr. 
Gough met the charges of falsehood by letters 

53 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

from distinguished advocates of temperance in 
the United States testifying to the facts as he 
had portrayed them. Resolutions by his friends 
which fully and heartily vindicated him had no 
effect to still the abuse. The reverse was the 
effect. Slanders, at first whispered from circle 
to circle, were at length openly published. One 
prohibition leader, bolder or more unscrupulous 
than his colleagues, printed a letter in which he 
declared that Mr. Gough had been often intoxi- 
cated with drugs — once insensibly so — in the 
streets of London, many times helplessly so in 
the streets of Glasgow; that there were many 
witnesses to the facts; that two of these occasions 
were within the writer's personal knowledge; 
and he challenged Mr. Gough to bring the matter 
before a jury of twelve Englishmen and pledged 
himself "on the honour of a gentleman and the 
faith of a Christian to furnish names and adduce 
further evidence of what I have now asserted." 

Mr. Gough accepted the challenge of Doctor 
Lees, sued him for libel, and brought him before 
the court to make good his charge. 

I should not venture thus to report this in- 
cident in the life of Mr. Gough if I depended 
solely on my memory of events occurring more 
than sixty years ago. But I wrote in 1884 a 
brief sketch of Mr. Gough's life which is now out 
of print. A copy of that sketch lies before me 

54 



JOHN B. GOUGH 

now, and from it I quote the following brief re- 
port of this extraordinary trial: 

Mr. Gough's counsel opened the case, stated 
the facts, and called Mr. Gough to go into the 
witness-box. Mr. Gough thus at the outset 
offered himself to the opposing counsel for a 
searching cross-examination into his whole life. 
It was a simple thing to do if the charges were 
wholly false; it would have been a disastrous 
thing to do if there had been any colour of truth 
in them, any ground even for a reasonable sus- 
picion of their truth. Mr. Gough carried with 
him into the witness-box a little handbag. He 
swore positively that since 1845 never had 
wine, spirits, or any fermented liquor touched 
his lips; that he had never eaten opium, bought 
opium, possessed opium; that he had never 
touched or owned laudanum except on that one 
occasion before his reformation, when he stopped 
on the edge of suicide ; that the whole story in all 
its parts was an absolute fabrication. . . . Then, 
in answer to a question from his counsel, he 
opened his hand-bag and took out a little memo- 
randum book. It was one of several. It then 
appeared that ever since the commencement of 
his lecturing experiences he had kept a diary. 
In this diary he entered upon every day the place 
where he spent it, the persons with whom he 
spent it, his occupation, and, if he had lectured, 

55 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

the price received for his lecture. He was thus 
able to fix with certainty his exact place and 
the witnesses who could testify to his condition 
on every day. Slander was dumb. It dared 
not face that diary. A hurried consultation took 
place between Doctor Lees and his counsel. 
Then, in Doctor Lees's name, and in his pres- 
ence, his counsel retracted the charges. He 
retracted the statement that his client knew of 
his own certain knowledge of Mr. Gough's in- 
toxication. Everything was withdrawn. Mr. 
Gough left the witness-stand without even being 
cross-examined. By consent a verdict was given 
to him of five guineas, a sum suflBcient to carry 
costs. 

The subsequent endeavours of Doctor Lees to 
retract his retraction had no effect upon public 
opinion. The verdict of the English people 
unanimously sustained the unanimous verdict 
of the English jury. What I wrote in 1884 is 
still true: "From that day to this slander 
against his [Mr. Gough's] good name has never 
been repeated. Neither envy, nor malice, nor 
even partisanship, dares face that diary." 

No influence is so diflScult to retain as that of 
the popular orator. Curiosity listens to him 
at first with enthusiasm: but repeated hearings 
satisfy curiosity, and enthusiasm gives place to 
a languid interest. This makes the position of 

56 



JOHN B. GOUGH 

the preacher so difficult, and the tenure of the 
pastorate so brief; this makes the blunder so 
serious of any preacher who allows himself to 
depend on his oratory for his permanent power 
over his people. If the popular orator defies 
public sentiment, it either overwhelms him or 
flows away and leaves him without an auditor. 
If he flatters the public, every new flattery must 
surpass its predecessor, till by and by flattery 
dies of its own extravagance. Mr. Gough not 
only achieved a preeminence among the orators 
of America and England, and this without ad- 
vantages of either birth or culture, but he re- 
tained that position during nearly half a century, 
in spite of changes of public thought and feeling 
respecting his chosen theme which would have 
rendered the speech-making of any ordinary man 
upon the platform in 1840 an anachronism be- 
fore 1886. 

The closing years of Mr. Gough's life were 
spent in his rural home a few miles from Wor- 
cester, Massachusetts. Without education he be- 
came a master of the English language; without 
advantages of birth or early training he became 
a refined and cultivated gentleman ; rescued from 
the depths of degradation by a kind word fitly 
spoken, he became a devout Christian. He was 
a great orator because he was in the best sense 
of that often-abused term, a great man. En- 

57 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

dowed with a musical voice, a mobile face, a 
vivid imagination, a human sympathy equally 
capable of irresistible pathos and of an almost 
rollicking humour, all controlled and directed to 
a noble end by common sense and a masterful 
conscience, Mr. Gough rendered to his native 
land and to the land of his adoption a service the 
effects of which surpass all calculation. 

And when he died men came from various 
parts of this country, and messages from all parts 
of the civihzed world, to do honour to his memory 
at the simple funeral services held in his country 
home near Worcester, Massachusetts. 



58 



ALICE FREEIVL\N PALMER, TEACHER 

HENRY F. DURANT,a successful lawyer 
in Massachusetts, was converted under 
the preaching of Dwight L. Moody in 
1864, became himself a lay preacher, eleven 
years later set apart a large portion of his very 
considerable fortune to the foundation of a col- 
lege for girls at Wellesley, a suburb of Boston, 
and thereafter devoted to the organization and 
management of the college most of his time and 
his thought until his death in 1881. The college 
building was erected on an eminence above a 
lake, on the opposite shore of which was Mr. 
Durant's home. The ample college grounds, 
beautifully diversified, included three hundred 
acres — one, he once told me, for each pupil. Wlien 
I first visited Wellesley College, probably in 
1879, Mr. Durant was spending much of his time 
in the college, exercising a controlling influence 
in the conduct of its affairs, and Miss Alice 
Freeman was teaching history and, if my 
memory does not mislead me, was also busy 
creating a library out of a growing collection of 
books. 

From the first she fascinated me. Whether a 

59 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

sculptor would consider her features beautiful 
I do not know. Beauty of features has never 
much appealed to me. But through her always- 
expressive face shone a beautiful spirit. Native 
refinement, scholarly culture, intuitive imagi- 
nation, unhesitating courage, womanly grace 
and spontaneity of life combined to make that 
beauty. Profoundly interested in the move- 
ment to widen the intellectual horizon of woman 
and open to her the long-locked doors of op- 
portunity to public service, she was then and 
always feminine. This, my first impression, I 
want to impress upon my reader, because, if I 
fail to do so, I shall lamentably fail to interpret 
the subject of this portrait. If I am asked what 
I mean by "feminine," I reply frankly that I do 
not know. No man can define "feminine." For 
to man the charm of woman is that she keeps him 
guessing. For this reason novelists fail in their 
heroines. The masculine reader of "David Cop- 
perfield" approves of Agnes, though she rather 
bores him, but delights in Dora, though he dis- 
approves her. On the other hand, Portia in "The 
Merchant of Venice" is a delightful heroine to 
the masculine mind because the Portia of the 
casket scene is so different from the Portia of 
the judgment scene. Alice Freeman Palmer 
seemed to me, I think from that first intro- 
duction to her, like an opal; you can always be 

60 



ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 

sure to find a wonderful light In it, but with what 
changing colours it will glow when you next look 
at it you cannot tell; no one can tell. 

I think it was because she was so feminine 
that she exercised over Mr. Durant an influence 
which no one else exercised and no one else could 
quite comprehend. This influence inspired him 
to select her, at the age of twenty-six, to be 
president of the college. He was a Puritan 
Christian. Prompt obedience to law was to 
him the sum of all virtues. One day as he and 
Miss Freeman were consulting together on 
some college business, a college girl passed by 
the open door. The following colloquy took 
place. 

Mr. Durant. Miss Freeman, I wish you would 
speak to that girl about her soul's salvation. 
She is in need of such counsel as you could give 
her. 

Miss Freeman. I will make it my business 
to get acquainted with her. What is her name? 

Mr. Durant. No! No! I want you to speak 
to her now. She has just passed by. 

Miss Freeman. I can't do that. I can't 
talk on this most sacred of subjects with a girl 
I have never known. 

Mr. Durant. Yes! Now! Now is the ac- 
cepted time, now is the day of salvation. 

Miss Freeman (after a little longer parley). 

61 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

Why, Mr Durant, it is impossible. You don't 
know anything about girls. 

Mr. Durant. I don't know anything about 
girls! Why, I have founded this college for 
girls; and I have been meeting them every week, 
almost every day, for the last three years. Why 
don't I know anything about girls? 

Miss Freeman. Because you have never had 
a daughter; your wife is not like any other 
woman that ever lived; and you've never been 
a girl yourself. 

Mrs. Palmer, who told me this incident, which 
I have here for brevity's sake put in dramatic 
form, added that often afterward when in their 
conferences she could not agree with him, he 
would bring the conference to a close by saying : 
"Well, I suppose I don't understand girls; I've 
never been a girl myself." 

This combination of courage, grace, and tact 
is strikingly illustrated by a subsequent in- 
cident when she had become the president of the 
college. 

Monday was the college holiday. Every 
Monday morning some seventy or eighty college 
girls went to Boston on the Boston and Albany 
Railroad. As no extra provision on the rail- 
road was made for this weekly exodus, the girls 
generally had to stand. Miss Freeman first 
called the attention of the station-master to the 

6S 



ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 

need of better accommodations; then she wrote 
to headquarters; then, getting no improvement, 
she wrote again; and then the impatient girls 
took the matter into their own hands. One 
Monday morning the usual eighty girls were at 
the station to take the train. One of their num- 
ber, more courageous than her companions, col- 
lected all their tickets from them; they all poured 
into one car and took their customary places in 
the aisle. The car door opened. "Tickets, 
please!" said the conductor. The leader at the 
head of the long line of swaying girls replied, 
"I have the tickets for our whole party, and 
will give them up as soon as you provide us with 
seats." The conductor took in the situation at 
a glance. He could not stop the train and bun- 
dle eighty girls out on the side of the track. 
"Give me your name, please, miss," said he. 
"Certainly," she replied, and handed him her 
card. But when she got back to the college 
she began to fear the consequences of her act 
and went directly to the president for counsel. 
"Then I knew," said Miss Freeman, in telling 
the story to me, "that my time had come." 
"If you hear from the railway," she said to the 
girl, "report to me." The next day the girl 
brought her a letter from the superintendent 
calling upon her to deliver the railway tickets. 
This she reported at once to the president, 

63 



\ 

SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

who took the letter. The next day a second 
letter was received; it was severer than the first 
and threatened to report her to the president. 
That also she reported to the president. The 
president reassured her. "Don't worry," she 
said. "You have already reported the case 
to the president; give me the letter." The 
third day Miss Freeman, going in to Boston, 
called on the superintendent; but not to apolo- 
gize — to complain. "Wellesley College," she 
said, "asks no favours of the railway. But you 
have been twice informed that every Monday 
some seventy or eighty girls go in to Boston 
from Wellesley; they pay for seats and are en- 
titled to seats, and no seats are provided for 
them." The superintendent apologized, and 
promised that in the future the seats should be 
provided. She rose to go. The superintendent 
begged to detain her a moment. Somewhat 
shamefacedly he narrated the incident and said 
he had no doubt that if she would ask the girls 
for the tickets which they possessed the girls 
would deliver them. Miss Freeman replied 
that the president of Wellesley College was not 
acting as collecting agent for the Boston and 
Albany Railroad and referred him for his claim 
against the college or its students to the legal 
adviser of the college whose address she gave 
him. Thereafter there was always accommo- 

64 



ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 

dation on Monday's train. The girls got their 
seats: the railroad never got the tickets. What 
sort of standing this incident gave to the presi- 
dent with the students the reader can better 
imagine than I can describe. 

Another incident, not less significant of the 
power of her personality, can be told in a few 
sentences. There had been some stealing in 
the college. Circumstances convinced the presi- 
dent that some one of the students was guilty, 
but did not point to any one. Her indignation, 
hot but controlled, coupled with the fellowship 
with the students which made them all recognize 
her as their best friend, enabled her so to speak 
in chapel one morning — how I wish I could have 
heard that chapel talk! — that the culprit came 
straight to her with a full confession. I do not 
recall that I ever heard of another sermon so 
immediately and personally effective. 

I do not think that I am mistaken in the opin- 
ion that Mr. Durant was more eager to make 
missionary Christians than to make ripe scholars. 
The incident already narrated illustrates his 
spiritual eagerness. Miss Freeman (I use 
the name she bore during those college days) 
was not less spiritually eager. But she did not 
think that Christian character and ripe scholar- 
ship were separate goals to be reached by sepa- 
rate roads, or that either was to be used merely 

65 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEINIPORARIES 

as a means to attain the other. She habitually 
thought of the Christian religion in New-Testa- 
ment terms as "life"; to inspire her pupils with 
life was always her inspiring purpose. Pro- 
fessor Palmer in his delightful biography of his 
wife brings out this characteristic very clearly: 

"Why will you," I said, "give all this time to speaking 
before uninstructed audiences, to discussions in endless 
committees with people too dull to know whether they 
are talking to the point, and to anxious interviews with 
tired and tiresome women.'' You would exhaust yourself 
less in writing books of lasting consequence. At present, 
you are building no monument. When you are gone peo- 
ple will ask who you were, and nobody will be able to say." 
But I always received the same indifferent answer: 
"Well, why should they say? I am trying to make girls 
wiser and happier. Books don't help much toward that. 
They are entertaining enough, but really dead things. 
Why should I make more of them? It is people that 
count. You want to put yourself into people; they touch 
other people; these, others still; and so you go on working 
forever." 

"It is people that count." That I think is 
one of the keys to Alice Freeman Palmer's 
character. She was not especially interested 
in themes or theories; but she was tremendously 
interested in people. I was once told by a friend 
of a young graduate who had just taken up 
teaching, and who, asked by a companion, what 
she was teaching, replied, "Twenty children." 

66 



ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 

When I first knew her, Miss Freeman was teach- 
ing three hundred college girls. They absorbed 
all her attention. She had especially prepared 
herself to teach history. But my guess is that 
she could have given points to any teacher in her 
faculty. She probably did not know mathe- 
matics as well as the professor of mathematics, or 
philosophy as well as the professor of philosophy, 
or Greek as well as the professor of Greek, but 
she knew girls, and she could have shown any 
specialist in her faculty how to get the girl's 
mind open to any truth the specialist wanted to 
get into that mind. 

There lies before me an address of hers en- 
titled "Why Go to College.?"* There is nothing 
in the publication to indicate when and where 
it was published, but it furnishes a singularly 
lucid interpretation of the ideal of education 
which, though possibly unformulated, directed 
and controlled all her educational work from my 
first acquaintance with her. Something of that 
ideal the reader may perhaps catch from a 
paragraphal abstract. 

Preeminently the college [is a place of edu- 
cation, and a good education emancipates the 
mind and makes us citizens of the world. No 
student who fails to get a little knowledge on 



♦"The Teacher: Essays and Addresses on Education," by George Herbert Palmer and 
Alice Freeman Palmer. 

67 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

many subjects and much knowledge on some 
can be said to have succeeded. The college is 
a place of happiness. '* Merely for good times, 
for romance, for society, college life offers un- 
equalled opportunities." She quotes Words- 
worth, "We live by admiration, hope, and love," 
and adds "The college abounds in all three. . . . 
Books, pictures, collections, appliances in every 
field, learned teachers, mirthful friends, ath- 
letics for holidays, the best words of the best 
men for holy days — all are here." The college 
is a place for gain in health. "The steady, long- 
continued routine of mental work, physical ex- 
ercise, recreation, and sleep, the simple and 
healthful food in place of irregular and un- 
studied diet, work out salvation for her." 
The college is a place of broadening influence. 
The girl "goes to college with the entire con- 
viction, half unknown to herself, that her 
father's political party contains all the honest 
men, her mother's social circle all the true ladies, 
her church all the real saints of the commun- 
ity. . . . Before her diploma is won she 
realizes how much wider a world she lives in than 
she ever dreamed of at home. The wealth that 
lies in differences has dawned upon her vision." 
In college we make broadening and inspiring 
friendships, and through them obtain new and 
more catholic, more generous ideals. "The 

68 



ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 

greatest thing any friend or teacher either in 
school or college can do for a student is to fur- 
nish him with a personal ideal." 

This Miss Freeman was doing during the six 
years of her college presidency. I was startled 
to read in her husband's biography of her that 
only for six years did she fill that position; and 
now looking back upon that period I am still 
filled with wonder that her never-failing foun- 
tain of life could have accomplished so much in 
so brief a time. For it is not only Wellesley 
College that still feels her influence. What 
she said to her husband still proves true: "You 
put yourself into people; they touch other peo- 
ple; these, others still; and so you go on working 
forever." 

My first college sermon was preached at Vassar 
College probably about 1878. Arriving there 
Friday night or Saturday morning I had an 
opportunity for a conference with one or more 
of the teachers and learned that there was in the 
student body a great deal of religious question- 
ing: their traditional faith had been shaken, a new 
faith had not come to take its place. So I took 
for my theme: "The foundations of faith" which 
I found to be in man's spiritual nature: the 
Bible and the Christ were authoritative because 
they interpreted man to himself. From Vassar 
I went to Wellesley. Mr. Durant was, if not 

69 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

its president, its controlling spirit. The teachers 
I talked with thought there was little or no 
skepticism in the student body, that the college 
was Evangelical from centre to circumference. 
The college was making much of a daily course 
of Bible study. Sol took for my theme: "What 
is the Bible and how shall we study it?" In the 
evening, with the cordial approval of the college 
authorities, I held a "Question Drawer." The 
girls were invited to send to my room any re- 
ligious questions on which they desired light for 
themselves or for a comrade. They were not to 
sign their name, and as no one but myself would 
see the questions and the handwriting would 
mean nothing to me, the secrecy of the con- 
fessional would characterize the meeting. The 
questions surprised the teachers as much as they 
surprised me: they covered the whole field of 
lay thinking from "What are the six days of 
creation.f^" to "Why should we believe in God.^^" 
In 1881 Mr. Durant died and Miss Alice Free- 
man became the president of the college. By 
the end of the first year of her administration she 
had cleared its atmosphere. Doubtings were no 
longer discouraged. Spring had followed winter. 
The eager quest for truth had taken the place of 
an acceptance of authority more apparent than 
real. In 1883 or 1884 I spent a week or ten days 
in the college preaching on the two Sundays, 

70 



ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 

lecturing nearly every day during the intervening 
week, and giving daily "office hours" to girls 
coming with questions, sometimes in twos or 
threes, sometimes in larger groups, oftenest 
alone. There was no limit to their coming; the 
only limit was set by my strength to receive 
and answer them. I took for the basis of my 
lectures the theme of the Vassar College sermon, 
"The foundations of faith," and out of them 
subsequently made a book entitled "In Aid of 
Faith" which is still in circulation. This gave 
me an opportunity to study the effect of the 
"higher education" on the religious life of girls, 
and incidentally to study the president of 
Wellesley College. 

Walking through the college corridors with 
her almost daily, her personal familiarity with 
her three hundred pupils filled me with ever- 
increasing amazement. She not only seemed to 
know them all by name: she knew their families 
and their interests. She asked one about her 
sick mother, another whether her father had yet 
returned from Europe, another whether her 
younger sister was getting ready to come to 
college. "How ever do you do it.^^" I asked 
her. "I never could." "Oh, yes!" she replied; 
"you could if you had to. It is simply that you 
never had to. Whatever we have to do, we can 
always do." In narrating after her death this 

71 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORAEIES 

conversation to her husband, I added, what I 
venture to quote here, *'This quiet confidence 
in the abiHty to do what needs to be done seems 
to me one of the secrets of her power. She 
leaned on her necessities, instead of letting her- 
self be broken by them; and that simple dis- 
closure of her method greatly added to the 
power of my life." 

No doubt this power to carry in her busy 
mind these details of the lives of others was in 
part a native gift; but it was one which she had 
assiduously cultivated, and she told me once 
what she did to cultivate it. She kept a memo- 
randum book in her bedroom in which were the 
names of all the freshman class. Under each 
name she wrote whatever information she from 
time to time acquired. These notes of her 
pupils' characters and experiences she studied 
as they studied their notes of the lectures of 
their instructors. Thus while her students 
studied their lessons she studied her students, 
and she put no less painstaking into her studies 
than the most studious of them put into theirs. 
This was no compulsory or professional study. 
She delighted in it. She wished to know every 
pupil that she might better befriend every pupil. 
It was true for her then, as it was true for her 
always: "It is people that count." 

She had not merely interest in her pupils and 

72 



ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 



affection for them. She had faith in them, be- i 
Heved in them, and by her faith inspired them / 
to have faith in themselves. Little beginnings ' 
of desire, mere seeds of purpose sprouted in the 
sunshine of her appreciative faith. It often 
happens that our deeper desires are hidden even 
from ourselves by some superficial wishes, our 
enduring purposes by some temporary incli- 
nations. Miss Freeman saw these subconscious 
forces and gave them power. She could control 
by authority when necessary; but she much pre- 
ferred to call into life the power of self-control. 
Her life was full of such incidents as the follow- 
ing narrated by her husband : 

Amusing stories are reported of girls who came to ask 
for something, and went away delighted to have obtained 
the opposite. One of them says: "In the spring of my 
senior year I had an invitation to spend the hohdays in 
Washington, and my family strongly urged me to arrange 
the visit. Overjoyed, I went to Miss Freeman to obtain 
permission to leave college several days before the va- 
cation. She was very warm, envying me the prospect of 
seeing the Capitol for the first time. She promised to 
ask the Faculty for permission and to state to them how 
great the opportunity for me was. But she inquired how 
many examinations and written exercises I should miss, 
incidentally calling attention to the fact that the pro- 
fessors would have to give me special ones in the following 
term. Gradually I felt the disadvantage of this irregular- 
ity. Still, there was Washington! And I asked if she 

73 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

herself would not be tempted to go. Indeed she would, 
she said, but college work was nearest, the first business. 
A Washington invitation might come again, a senior year 
in college, never. So, quite as if my own judgment had 
been my guide, I decided that I did not want to go to 
Washington. A little later, when the office door had 
closed, I stopped on the stairs and asked myself if this was 
the same person who had passed there half an hour before, 
and what had induced me to give up the coveted journey 
when there was no hint on Miss Freeman's part of com- 
pulsion, much less of refusal." 

In laying emphasis, as throughout this paper 
I am doing, on Miss Freeman's power to awaken 
the spirit of hfe in her pupils and direct it in 
healthful channels, I must not leave the im- 
pression that she shared the extraordinary opin- 
ion of some skeptics of our time that it is pos- 
sible to cultivate in any community the spirit of 
religion without its institutions. As well ex- 
pect to cultivate the spirit of music in a 
community without concerts, of art in a com- 
munity without picture galleries, of education 
in a community without schools. She con- 
ducted the daily chapel exercises herself and 
they were never perfunctory. The Scripture 
readings and the hymns were selected with care, 
and the services, varying with the varying need 
of the college or the varying mood of the presi- 
dent, were always characterized by a sincere 
and simple spiritual beauty. She herself se- 

74 



ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 

lected with care the preachers for the Sunday 
services; what she expected from them and 
how much she herself, by her phrasing of her 
invitations put into them, the following much- 
prized letter may here indicate : 

Wellesley College, 
January 18th, 1886. 
My DEAR Dr. Abbott: 

Is it not time that we should hear your voice in the 
chapel again? It seems so to us, and that the time of times 
is approaching when you can help and strengthen us here. 
The last Thursday of this month, the 28th, is the Day of 
Prayer for colleges. It has always been a great day in 
Wellesley, a day full of seed-sowing, and often of decisions 
at which we have long rejoiced. All college exercises are 
suspended for the day. We have a sermon in the morning, 
and such other services for prayer and conference as seem 
to be useful at the time; but the day and evening are given 
up to thought and prayer for all colleges and schools, 
especially for our own, and for all here who are not Chris- 
tians. We want you and Mrs, Abbott with us on this 
day very much. The work you did with the students 
last year makes it possible for you to do more for them now 
than any one else, and I long to have this serious and 
prayerful spirit which now prevails in the College, guided 
and deepened until we shall be one in Him. If you can 
come on for Thursday and follow the work of that day, 
by speaking to the students Friday following at their 
Bible hour in the afternoon, it would just meet our desire. 
You see, dear Dr. Abbott, what we need. We have had 
very good daily meetings during the week of prayer, grow- 
ing in interest, so that we have continued to have meetings 

75 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

in the chapel Tuesday as well as Thursday evenings, and 
each one is more hopeful than the last. Yet there are 
nearly a hundred here whose names are not on the Chris- 
tian Association roll and whose lives are not devoted to our 
Master; and so many more who need clearer ideas of duty 
and larger faith in Him. I know you need no assurance 
of our desire and no urging to come to our help. If you 
can find it possible and wise for yourself, you will make 
us a visit now and stay as long as you can and bring "the 
family." The Cottage is not yet finished, but we can 
make you comfortable in the midst of things, and you shall 
have so many chances to do good! There is nothing I can 
offer beyond that, is there.'* And there is much to tell and 
hear and many bits of advice you two people can give us. 
I should have written this to Mrs. Abbott, but I have 
no doubt she is reading it to spare you the trouble, like 
the wife she is. Otherwise I would assure you that she 
needs a vacation and that we w411 be better to her this time 
if she will come and bring you. As it is I leave it all to 
you both, with Wellesley's love always. 

Yours faithfully 

Alice E. Freeman. 

Once and only once did I see Miss Freeman 
angry, and then it was her reHgion that made 
her so. An unselfish anger is not a brief mad- 
ness and her anger did not disturb her quiet and 
wise judgment or lead her even for a moment to 
lose her perfect self-control. The committee of 
the American Board (Congregational) for For- 
eign Missions, acting under the leadership of one 
of its secretaries, who subsequently resigned his 

76 



ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 

office, adopted the policy of refusing volunteers 
for foreign missionary service unless they could 
subscribe to the secretary's affirmation that all 
the heathen who had never heard of Christ were 
foredoomed and irreparably lost. Her indig- 
nation, in which I fully shared, was as much be- 
cause of the wrong it did the Christian Church as 
because of the wrong it did two of her pupils, 
devoted followers of Christ, fully equipped for a 
Christian service to which they had dedicated 
themselves and for which they had for some 
years been preparing. During the controversy 
in the Congregational churches which that refusal 
created, and which lasted for two or three years, 
I was in frequent consultation with Miss Free- 
man and admired alike her indignation and the 
strong will that controlled and the wise judgment 
that directed it to beneficent ends. Emotion, like 
fire, is a good servant. Alice Freeman Palmer 
was a woman of strong emotions but they were 
always under the control of a stronger will. 

Another incident in her life indicated this self- 
control. For nothing perhaps better illustrates 
this habitual control over the emotions than 
the power to lay aside a fascinating work on 
occasions and give the overstrained nerves a 
rest. The ability to do this is the best pre- 
ventive of nervous exliaustion. Miss Freeman, 
who followed her Master in daring to undertake 

77 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEIVIPORARIES 

great things and in giving herself without re- 
serve to their accomphshment, followed him also 
in dropping her work from time to time for 
periods of absolute repose. Occasionally, leaving 
word with one companion whither she was going, 
she would disappear, no one else knew where or 
why. In fact, she engaged a room in a hotel in 
Boston, stayed in retirement for one, two, or three 
days, and then came back to take up her work 
again with rested nerves and recuperated strength. 
When in December, 1887, she married Pro- 
fessor George H. Palmer of Harvard College 
she resigned the presidency of Wellesley College 
and with it the professional vocation of teacher. 
She continued to teach by pen and voice and to 
take an active part by her counsels in the edu- 
cational work of her state by her service on the 
Massachusetts Board of Education. But her 
personal relation as teacher to pupil came to an 
end. And therefore with that change in her 
life-activity this sketch comes to an end, for this 
is not a Life but a portrait, and a portrait only 
of the teacher. All her friends did not congratu- 
late her on her marriage. Some thought she 
might have married and still retained her office — 
been both president and wife; some thought she 
was giving up a position of great influence and 
power for a minor position. I shared neither 
opinion. A happy marriage, I believe, is always 

78 



ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 

a promotion, always adds not only to the happi- 
ness but to the largeness and richness of life. 
A warm personal friend of both, I congratulated 
both without any reserve. And I had no wish 
to see Alice Freeman become a divided president 
and a divided wife; and I had no apprehension 
that she would do so. I felt what in the follow- 
ing verse she has expressed with a beauty of 
diction which I could never emulate: 

Great love has triumphed. At a crisis hour 
Of strength and struggle in the heights of life 

He came, and, bidding me abandon power, 
Called me to take the quiet name of wife. 

If any of my readers desire a better acquaint- 
ance with Alice Freeman Palmer, the material is 
available in her biography written by her hus- 
band with a simplicity that is more than elo- 
quence and with a frankness that is the best 
possible reserve. From a little book of her 
verse, not written for the public but published 
by her husband after her death, I select here one 
verse, because it is a revelation of the deeper 
experience of her hidden life : 

I said to Pain, I will not have thee here! 
The nights are weary and the days are drear 

In thy hard company ! 
He clasped me close and held me still so long 
I learned how deep his voice, how sweet his song, 

How far his eyes can see. 

79 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

It was customary in the 'eighties for Wellesley 
College girls to elect honorary members to their 
classes. That honour was conferred upon me. 
Thus enrolled among the pupils of Alice Free- 
man Palmer I venture to represent them as well 
as myself by writing beneath this simple pen- 
picture of our honoured teacher : 

Thy gentleness hath made me great. 



80 



JOHN FISKE, EVOLUTIONIST 

4 YOUNG man once called to see me with 
/\ the following account of his experience: 
-Z ^*'I was brought up to believe that the 
Bible is inspired and infallible in all its state- 
ments; that the world was made out of nothing 
in six days of twenty -four hours each; that God 
made a perfect man six thousand years ago ; that 
he fell; and that because of his fall sin, misery, 
and death have entered into the world. In that 
faith I joined the Church when I was a boy. I 
have since learned that the world was not made 
in six days; that man has lived on the earth a 
great deal longer than six thousand years; that 
he was gradually developed out of a lower animal 
form; and that the only fall has been a fall up- 
ward. The Bible is gone; my faith is gone with 
it; and now I do not know whether there is a God 
in the universe or a soul in the body." 

This interprets the overthrow of the faith of 
thousands which characterized the latter half of 
the nineteenth century. It was a faith founded 
on a book and on a false interpretation of that 
book; and when science undermined the foun- 
dation the superstructure fell. 

81 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

It was in this period that John Fiske hved. 
He was born in 1842, died in 1901. His father 
died, his mqther married again; and his boyhood 
was spent in Middletown, Connecticut, with his 
grandmother, whose name he took. His mother 
and his grandmother were devout souls whose 
genuine piety was mated with a mechanical 
though harmonious philosophy. Mr. Clark 
in his biography of Mr. Fiske* gives in twelve 
propositions a fairly accurate skeleton of Cal- 
vinism, but as a portrait of living Calvinism it 
is about as accurate as was Yorick's skull of 
Hamlet's friend. The reverence for God, the 
obedience to law, the sense of human dignity 
and worth lost in the fall, but to be regained 
in redemption, are all left out. Happily they 
were not left out from the experience of Mrs. 
Stoughton and Mrs. Fiske. The boy was not 
only instructed in the theology of his mother 
and his grandmother, but he imbibed something 
of their spirit. When he threw away their dog- 
mas, he retained the inspiration of their lives 
and reconciled in himself science and religion. 
His broad scholarship and his literary skill en- 
abled him later to illustrate by his pen what 
he experienced in his life — both the overthrow 
of faith and its reestablishment on a firmer 
foundation than before. 

* "The Life and Letters of John Fiske." By John Spencer Clark. Illustrated. 2 vols. 
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. $7.50. 

82 



JOHN FISKE 

In boyhood he was an omnivorous reader. 
Everything interested him in the world of things 
and the world of ideas. He had an extraordi- 
narily open mind and an eager curiosity. The 
story of his boyhood makes the reader wonder 
whether our present system of education is not 
lamentably inefficient and wasteful, whether a 
better system could not accomplish for ordinary 
boys what this extraordinary boy accomplished 
for himself. At eleven years of age he wrote to 
his mother: "We had an examination Thurs- 
day. I was examined in Greenleaf's Arithmetic; 
Perkins and Loomis' Algebra; through four 
books Euclid; through Hedge's Logic; through 
four books Csesar; eight books Virgil; four Orat. 
Cicero and the Grseca Majora; through the 
Latin and Greek grammars; and last, but not 
least dreaded, through Greek syntax. Mr. 
Brewer said I passed an admirable examination. 
I am reading Sallust, which is so easy that I have 
read forty-eight chapters without looking in the 
dictionary." A year later he earned the money 
with which to buy a good Greek-English diction- 
ary. His grandmother thought five dollars a 
large sum for so unpractical a luxury; but when 
he had earned by hard work $3.60 she gave him 
the balance needed for the purchase. At thirteen 
years of age, in addition to his school studies, 
carried on to the satisfaction of his teachers, 

83 



SILHOUETTES OF IMY CONTEMPORARIES 

he was reading, among other authors, Grote, 
Emerson, Bayne, Shakespeare, Milton, Hugh 
Miller, and Humboldt's "Cosmos." He wrote 
his mother: "Do you not consider Humboldt 
the greatest man of the nineteenth century, and 
the most erudite that ever lived?" His leisure 
time he gave to music and religion : taught in the 
Sunday-school, assigned two evenings a week to 
revival meetings, led the singing, and took an 
active part in the speaking. He entered Har- 
vard in preference to Yale because "the course 
at Harvard is very different and much 
harder. . . . It is a bad place for a care- 
less scholar, but unequalled in facilities for an 
ambitious one." 

By this time (1860) his scientific studies had 
led him, after much questioning, to reject what 
our author calls "dogmatic Christianity," but 
I should call dogmatic Calvinism. Unfortu- 
nately, the pastor of his church was wholly un- 
able to understand the working of his mind. 
This pastor called upon the grandmother to get 
more light on the cause of John's backsliding. 
The grandmother stoutly maintained that John 
could not be an infidel. 

"Why," said she, "he never did a bad thing in his life, 
and then, he is such a faithful student." "Yes," said 
Doctor Taylor, "that makes him all the worse. He does 
not believe in the inspiration of the Bible nor in the Divin- 

84 



JOHN FISKE 

ity of Christ, and he has given up the Church." Still she 
maintained he could not be an infidel, and in the inno- 
cence of her heart she took Doctor Taylor into John's library 
to see the fine collection of books he had got together, all 
of which she knew he had read. Alas, to the heresy-hunter 
the exhibit was too conclusive! There side by side with 
books of sound orthodoxy were many ancient classics, and 
the works of Humboldt, Voltaire, Lewes, Fichte, Schlegel, 
Buckle, Cuvier, Laplace, Milne-Edwards, De Quincey, 
Theodore Parker, Strauss, Comte, Grote, Gibbon, and 
John Stuart Mill. Doctor Taylor had no praise to bestow 
upon such a collection of books in the hands of his young 
parishioner, and in response to the inquiry as to what he 
thought of them, he could only shake his head. 

The Harvard of 1860 was very different from 
the Harvard of to-day. It had its theological 
standard, which its students were expected to 
accept on the authority of their teachers. It 
was as dogmatic as Princeton, though the stand- 
ard was different. "The College," says Senator 
Hoar in his autobiography, "had rejected the 
old Calvinistic creed of New England and sub- 
stituted in its stead the strict Unitarianism of 
Doctor Ware and Andrews Norton, a creed in its 
substance hardly more tolerant or liberal than 
that which it supplanted." No New England 
college had yet learned that the object of edu- 
cation is to enable the pupils to do their own 
thinking. 

But young Fiske was already on his way to the 

85 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPOR ABIES 

deJSnition of education which seven years later 
he expressed in a characteristic sentence. The 
object of education, he said, is the teaching "of 
the student to think for himself and then to give 
him the material to exercise his thought upon." 

When at eighteen years of age he entered 
Harvard he had already become a convinced and 
enthusiastic though imperfectly educated evo- 
lutionist. So enthusiastic was he that when 
he found in a Boston book store the original pros- 
pectus of Herbert Spencer's system of philoso- 
phy to be published in quarterly numbers and 
sold by subscription if a sufficient number of 
subscribers could be found, he put his name down 
for $2.50 a year and wrote to his mother that 
if he had two thousand dollars he would lay 
one thousand at Mr. Spencer's feet to help him 
execute his great work. 

But in Cambridge he found as little sympathy 
for his new thought as in Middletown, and 
scarcely any more liberty for either thought or ac- 
tion. In one respect the difficulties he encountered 
were greater. In Middletown they were wholly 
religious; in Cambridge they were also academic. 
For not only was the philosophy taught hostile 
to the new doctrine, but Agassiz, at that time 
the most popular and famous teacher of natural 
science in America, was as strongly opposed to 
evolution as were the orthodox theologians. 

86 



JOHN FISKE 

John Fiske was summoned before the Faculty 
and charged with disseminating infidehty among 
the students, and escaped a sentence of suspen- 
sion only after a hot battle between the accused 
and the defendants of intellectual liberty. The 
offence of reading in chapel, which was made 
the occasion of a charge against him, he admit- 
ted, apologized for, and never repeated. 

The American hostility to the doctrine of 
evolution was not unnatural. For in England 
the leading evolutionists were frankly agnostic. 
They reluctantly discarded or were avowedly 
indifferent to the theological dogmas which were 
then generally regarded and still are often re- 
garded, as essential parts of the Christian faith, 
and if they did not reject, they certainly did not 
uphold, beliefs which are essential to any rational 
recognition of the reality and trustworthiness 
of the spiritual belief in a personal God and in a 
conscious personal immortality. The evolution- 
ists were indignant that they were charged with 
being materialists, but if we consider the poverty 
of language and the universal tendency among 
the mass of men to misunderstand any new 
philosophy, we cannot wonder at the charge. 

The four most eminent evolutionists in Eng- 
land were Spencer, Huxley, Darwin, and Tyndall. 

The clearest expression of faith in a personal 
God that I have been able to find in the writings 

87 



SILHOITTTES OF MY COXTEMPOR.IRIES 

of either one of these evolutional philosophers is 
contained in the famous "Behast Address" of 
John Tyndall, who quotes Thomas Carlyle as 
sa^'in2:. "Did I not believe that an Intelligence 
is at the heart of things, my life on earth would 
be intolerable." TyndaU neither criticises nor 
endorses this statement; he merely adds: "The 
utterance of these words is not, in my opinion, 
rendered less but more noble by the fact that 
it was the need of ethical harmony here, and not 
the thought of personal happiness hereafter, 
that prompted his observation." 

Herbert Spencer could get no nearer Christian 
faith in God as a Father than the assurance 
that "amid the mysteries that the more they 
are thought about, the more mysterious they 
appear, there still remains the one absolute 
certainty that he is ever in the presence of an 
Infinite and Eternal Enersr^'. from which all 

* I. 

things proceed." 

Charles Darwin never denied but never af- 
firmed that there is any e%"idence of an intelligent 
purpose in nature. Reporting a conversation 
with Mr. Darwin during the last year of his life, 
the Duke of ArgA'll says: "I said to Mr. Darwin, 
with reference to some of his own remarkable 
works on the 'Fertilization of Orchards* and on 
'The Earthworms,' 'it was impossible to look at 
these without seeing that they were the effect 

88 



JOHN FISKE 

and expression of mind.' I shall never forget 
Mr. Darwin's answer. He looked at me hard 
and said: 'Well, that often comes over me with 
overwhelming force; but at other times,' and he 
shook his head vaguely, adding, 'it seems to go 
away.' " 

Mr. Huxley, after reciting some of the con- 
troversies among philosophers respecting the 
nature of the Deity, contemptuously dismisses 
the whole subject with the words: "Truly on 
this topic silence is golden; while speech reaches 
not even the dignity of sounding brass or tinkling 
cymbal, and is but the weary clatter of an end- 
less logomachy." 

Though John Fiske definitely abandoned cer- 
tain of the dogmas held as an essential part of 
the Christian faith by his ancestors, he never 
abandoned his faith in the reality of the spiritual 
life — involving faith in a personal God and 
in personal immortality. But when in 1869 
Charles W. Eliot was elected president of Har- 
vard College and introduced the new regime of 
intellectual liberty by inviting Ralph Waldo 
Emerson and John Fiske to lecture, Mr. Fiske 
became the target for bitter attacks in which 
honest misunderstanding and malicious misrepre- 
sentation united in an endeavour to down the 
young man who was then the foremost repre- 
sentative in America of the new philosophy. 

89 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

The publication of his Lectures was characterized 
as part of a plan obtaining among free-thinkers 
to disseminate far and wide attacks upon the 
system of "revealed religion," and the new policy 
inaugurated by the new president was labelled 
"Harvard's Raid on Religion." When in 1870 
Fiske was nominated as temporary Acting 
Professor of History, the nomination was con- 
firmed, but only by a bare majority. "It was 
openly charged that Fiske was a pronounced 
atheist, and the more dangerous because of his 
learning and abihty." The hostility was so 
great to his holding any permanent position in 
the Faculty that no attempt was made to secure 
for him a permanent appointment. 

This hostility did not cause Mr. Fiske to 
modify his views nor did it embitter him against 
his assailants. He apparently never attacked 
them and rarely defended himself. He went 
on completing his preparations for the publica- 
tion both in England and the United States of 
his exposition of evolution, entitled "Cosmic 
Philosophy," and he repeated his message in 
lectures to such audiences as wished to hear them. 
But if he neither attacked his enemies nor di- 
rectly defended himself from them he showed 
ability, very rare in pioneers, to learn from them. 
A cartoon casting ridicule on evolution by de- 
picting Spencer and Fiske endeavouring to fly a 

90 



JOHN FISKE 

kite labelled "The doctrine of evolution" with 
a frog, a crocodile, two monkeys, and some other 
animals tied to it to constitute its tail, he had 
framed and hung in his study. His comment 
was: "I like to keep this design before me as a 
sort of theological barometer — objections to it 
show how rapidly the religious mind is moving 
toward the great truths of 'Cosmic Evolution.'" 
He studied the current criticisms both scientific 
and theological, not to conform his teaching to 
the current beliefs, but to understand how so to 
explain the new outlook upon the universe as 
to make it understandable even by those preju- 
diced against it. He wrote to his mother: 

When my ."Cosmic Philosophy" comes out, you will see 
how utterly impossible it is that Christianity should die 
out; but utterly inevitable it is that it should be meta- 
morphosed even as it has been metamorphosed over and 
over again. 

From the scholars, who are quite often the ones 
most prejudiced by tradition, he appealed to the 
reason and to the reasonable emotions of the 
people. The spirit in which these lectures were 
given and how they were received I can best in- 
dicate by an extract from a letter written to his 
mother from Boston in 1872: 

My concluding lecture — on the "Critical Attitude of 
Philosophy toward Christianity," in which, as the con- 
summation of my long course, I threw a blaze of new light 

91 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

upon the complete harmony between Christianity and the 
deepest scientific philosophy, was given Friday noon, and 
was received with immense applause. You ought to have 
been there. I suppose there was some eloquence as well as 
logic in it, for many of the ladies in the audience were 
moved to tears. Many were the expressions almost of 
affection which I got afterward. The best effect of it 
will be to destroy the absurd theological prejudice which 
has hitherto worked against me, chiefly with those people 
who haven't had the remotest idea of what my views are. 
I have long known that my views needed only to be 
known to be sympathized with by the most truly re- 
ligious part of the community of whatever sect; that when 
thoroughly stated and understood, they disarm opposition, 
and leave no ground for dissension anywhere — and this 
winter's experiment has proved that I was right. 

Twelve years later, invited to present his views 
before the Concord School of Philosophy at 
Concord, Massachusetts, he gave in two suc- 
cessive years two lectures subsequently published 
in small books entitled respectively: "The Des- 
tiny of Man" and "The Idea of God." The re- 
lation of modern scientific thought to the re- 
ligious life has been more fully treated since then 
by different writers, but I do not know where the 
student can find, even now, presented with equal 
brevity and clearness, the new arguments which 
the evolutionary hypothesis furnishes in sup- 
port of faith in personal immortality and a per- 
sonal God. Here all I can do is to indicate very 

92 



JOHN FISKE 

briefly and therefore imperfectly the Hne of Mr. 
Fiske's thought in these volumes. 

The Destiny of Man. It is true that life be- 
yond the grave is incapable of scientific demon- 
stration since it is a hope, and "hope that is seen 
is not hope: for what a man seeth why doeth he 
yet hope for it.^^" But it is also true that de- 
velopment must have a goal as well as a begin- 
ning, and the opinion that the human race is 
ascending from a purely animal ancestry and 
has not yet reached its goal gives a right to 
anticipate a further development in a future life. 
And Mr. Fiske found in the materialists' phi- 
losophy the same kind of assumption that the 
materialists treated with such scorn when they 
found it in the philosophy of the theologians. 

The materialistic assumption that the Ufe of the soul 
ends with the Hfe of the body is perhaps the most colossal 
instance of baseless assumption that is known to the his- 
tory of philosophy. No evidence for it can be alleged be- 
yond the familiar fact that during the present life we know 
Soul only in its association with Body, and therefore can- 
not discover disembodied soul without dying ourselves. 
This fact must always prevent us from obtaining direct 
evidence for the belief in the soul's survival. But a nega- 
tive presumption is not created by the absence of proof in 
cases where, in the nature of things, proof is inaccessible. 
With his illegitimate hypothesis of annihilation, the mater- 
ialist transgresses the bounds of experience quite as widely 
as the poet who sings of the New Jerusalem with its river 

93 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

of life and its streets of gold. Scientifically speaking, 
there is not a particle of evidence for either view. 

The Idea of God. The Darwinian biology by 
exhibiting Man as the terminal fact in that stu- 
pendous process of evolution whereby things 
have come to be what they are, makes a future 
continuation of that process a reasonable hope, 
and faith in a spiritual Power producing and 
directing it a reasonable and indeed a scienti- 
fically necessary faith. "The whole tendency 
of modern science is to impress upon us even 
more forcibly the truth that the entire modern 
universe is an immense unit, animated through 
all its parts by a single principle of life"; "there 
appears a reasonableness in the universe such 
as had not appeared before"; and it is seen that 
"the presence of God is the one all-pervading 
fact of life from which there is no escape." It 
is true that this God is indefinable, but he is not 
unknown. 

Though we may not by searching find out God, though 
we may not compass infinitude or attain to absolute knowl- 
edge, we may at least know all that it concerns us to know, 
as intelligent and responsible beings. They who seek to 
know more than this, to transcend the conditions under 
which alone is knowledge possible, are, in Goethe's pro- 
found language, as wise as little children who, when they 
have looked into a mirror, turn it around to see what is 
behind it. 

94 



JOHN FISKE 

This imperfect interpretation from Mr. Fiske's 
little books may, I hope, send some of my readers 
to the books themselves for their singularly 
lucid explanations of the spiritual significance 
of the doctrine of evolution. The conclusion 
to which Mr. Fiske brings his readers in the con- 
cluding paragraph of the second book may fairly 
be regarded as the confession of faith of the fore- 
most American evolutionists of his time. 

Of some things we may feel sure. Humanity is not a 
mere local incident in an endless and aimless series of cos- 
mical changes. The events of the universe are not the 
work of change, neither are they the outcome of blind 
necessity. Practically there is a purpose in the world 
wher'^of it is our highest duty to learn the lesson, however 
well or ill we may fare in rendering a scientific account of 
it. When from the dawn of life we see all things working 
together toward the evolution of the highest spiritual 
attributes of Man, we know, however the words may stum- 
ble in which we try to say it, that God is in the deepest 
sense a moral Being. The everlasting source of phe- 
nomena is none other than the infinite Power that makes 
for righteousness. Thou canst not by searching find Him 
out; yet put thy trust in Him, and against thee the gates 
of hell shall not prevail; for there is neither wisdom nor 
understanding nor counsel against the Eternal. 

The opposition to Mr. Fiske was for a time 
seemingly successful: it disappointed his am- 
bition and President Eliot's desire, for it pre- 

95 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

vented his appointment to a professor's chair 
in Harvard University. But it can hardly be 
doubted that it added to his usefulness. It 
enabled him to understand the religious op- 
position to the doctrine of evolution and to 
give to that doctrine an exposition of its spiritual 
implications which none of the leaders of the new 
thought in England had ever attempted to do. 
The bitterness of the opposition was gradu- 
ally mitigated and finally almost wholly disap- 
peared. He began to be invited by ministers 
to preach in their pulpits; his biographer gives 
the title of three addresses that he prepared to 
meet these invitations : " The Mystery of Evil' ' ; 
*'The Cosmic Roots of Love and Self -Sacrifice" ; 
"The Everlasting Reality of Religion." And in 
1879 he was elected a member of the Board of 
Overseers of Harvard College, the body which 
with difficulty had been induced to allow him to 
occupy a professor's chair, even temporarily, less 
than ten years before. Of his subsequent ser- 
vice to his countrymen by his deservedly popular 
contributions to the history of his country I do 
not speak, for this essay is devoted solely to an 
estimate of John Fiske — Evolutionist. 

Here, therefore, I must leave him, at forty- 
three years of age, the acknowledged leader of 
the evolution movement in the United States, 
and recognized as their colleague and peer by 

96 



JOHN FISKE 

such leaders of evolutionary thought in Eng- 
land as Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, Lewes, Lyell, 
and Darwin. Of his home life an indication is 
afforded by his charming dedication to his wife 
of the volume in which he brought his career as 
a teacher of evolutionary philosophy to its close : 

TO 

MY WIFE 

IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE SWEET SUNDAY MORNING 

UNDER THE APPLE-TREE ON THE HILLSIDE 

WHEN WE TWO SAT LOOKING DOWN INTO FAIRY WOODLAND 

PATHS AND TALKED OF THE THINGS 

SINCE WRITTEN IN THIS LITTLE BOOK 

I NOW DEDICATE IT 

Something like a quarter of a century ago, 
preaching at Yale University, Sunday morning, 
I announced that in the evening I would speak 
to the students on evolution and religion. The 
lecture room of the Y.M.C.A. building was 
crowded and overflowed into an adjoining room 
and into the hallway; and when, after speaking 
nearly half an hour, I announced a recess in 
order that young men who were engaged or 
desirous to attend evening service in any of the 
churches might do so, not enough went out to 
leave room for outsiders waiting an opportunity 
to come in. To-day such an announcement 
would detract rather than attract. The student 

97 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

world is no longer perplexed by the supposed con- 
tradiction between science and religion; that is, 
between the recognized laws of the material 
world and the spiritual consciousness of men. 
This world neither rejects science as infidel nor 
religion as a superstition, though it has rejected 
much of the old theology and has reinterpreted 
and reestimated the Bible. 

This change has been accompanied by radical 
changes in religious thought, but not by a loss of 
faith. On the contrary, and any one who is famil- 
iar with college life knows that much more respect 
is paid to-day by our college students not only 
to ethical rules, not only to the spirit of Chris- 
tianity, but also to its institutions. The work 
of the Y.M.C.A. is far more effective; the atten- 
dance at church service where attendance is 
voluntary is larger; where attendance is required 
the attention is better and more reverent. That 
this change in doctrinal views has been accom- 
plished in this country with a gain, not a loss, in 
religious life is largely due to the influence of three 
men — James McCosh, Henry Ward Beecher, 
and John Fiske. 

In England the churches met the evolutionists 
either with bitter hostility or with cold indiffer- 
ence. Doctor Martineau signified a qualified ac- 
ceptance of evolution; but his qualifications in- 
volved a flat denial of an unbroken progress, and 

98 



JOHN FISKE 

therefore of evolution, as John Fiske defines it, 
"God's way of doing things." The whole sub- 
ject is conspicuous by its absence from the writ- 
ings of such liberal theologians as Maurice, 
Stanley, and Robertson. In this country evo- 
lution was welcomed by Doctor McCosh, the 
president of its largest Presbyterian college, and 
by Henry Ward Beecher, the pastor of what was 
then its largest and most famous Puritan church. 
And Mr. Beecher was instrumental with others 
in procuring the republication in this country of 
the work of the leading evolutionary authors in 
England, preached and lectured extensively in 
favour of the theory and of its application to the 
problems of the religious life, and joined with 
Mr. Fiske in a testimonial dinner to Herbert 
Spencer on the occasion of Mr. Spencer's last 
visit to this country. Mr. Fiske, approaching 
the problem of evolution and religion from the 
scientific side, separated himself from his Eng- 
lish contemporaries by his faith in "The Ever- 
lasting Reality of Religion," and in the immor- 
tality of the spirit of Christianity. To no one 
man more than to John Fiske do we owe the 
fact that in this country science and religion are 
not foes, and that in increasing numbers their 
respective advocates recognize in each other 
comrades, seeking by different paths to come 
to a knowledge of the truth. 

99 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE, AN AMERICAN 
ABOU BEN ADHEM 

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase !) 

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace. 

And saw, within the moonlight in his room, 

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom. 

An angel writing in a book of gold : — 

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, 

And to the Presence in the room he said, 

"What writest thou?" — The vision raised its head, 

And with a look made of all sweet accord, 

Answer'd, "The names of those who love the Lord." 

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so," 

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, 

But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee then. 

Write me as one that loves his fellow men." 

The angel wrote and vanished. The next night 

It came again with a great wakenmg light, 

And show'd the names whom love of God had bless'd 

And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. 

N''0 ONE who really knew Edward Ever- 
ett Hale could have doubted that he 
loved God. As much as any man I 
ever knew he understood the saying of Christ: 
"I call you not servants, but I have called you 
friends." 

100 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

He and I many years ago conducted together 
one Sunday morning a service in a Baptist 
church in the Adirondacks. I preached the 
sermon; he made what is infeHcitously called 
the "long prayer." After he had prayed, it 
seemed to me quite unnecessary for me to 
preach. For by his prayer he had brought 
us into the immediate presence of God, and 
that is what we go to church for, is it not? 
I was specially impressed not with the literary 
beauty of his prayer as with the prayers of 
Robert Louis Stevenson, but with the spiritual 
beauty of his prayer, as with some of those in 
the Book of Common Prayer. I did not notice 
then, I do not recall now, the form of his prayer. 
But I was conscious of an invisible presence in 
the room, of One with whom he was talking 
"face to face." Nothing else counted. 

There is a great difference between the Re- 
ligion of Humanity and the Humanity of Re- 
ligion. John Cotter Morison has interpreted 
the Religion of Humanity. In his volume en- 
titled "The Service of Man" he contends that 
the service of God has been an injury to the 
human race and for it we need to substitute the 
service of our fellowmen. That was not Ed- 
ward Everett Hale's faith. Nevertheless, I 
think if the Angel had come to him he would 
have hesitated to write himself down as one who 

101 






SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

loved the Lord and would have said with Abou 
Ben Adhem 

"I pray thee then, 
Write me as one that loves his fellow men." 

Under the title "A New England Boyhood" 
Doctor Hale has written a charming account of 
his early home, his school and his college life, and 
of Boston in the second quarter of the nineteenth 
century. To that story and to the remarkable 
biography by his son Everett Hale, Jr., I am 
indebted for the little history in this article be- 
yond my own personal recollections. 

Edward Everett Hale was born in Boston, 
May 14, 1822. His father was the owner and 
editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser when that 
journal was the recognized organ of the intel- 
lectual aristocracy of eastern Massachusetts. 
The daily paper was less a gatherer of news than 
it is to-day, but its editorial pages exercised a 
greater influence on public opinion. His father 
was a cultivated scholar; had a fine literary 
sense; kept up his Latin; read French and Ger- 
man easily. His mother, the son tells us, "was 
the only woman in Boston who could read Ger- 
man when I was a boy," by which I understand 
that he simply means that she was the only wo- 
man in Boston within his acquaintance who read 
German. The boy was born into a literary at- 

102 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

mosphere, and from early boyhood was used to 
books, newspapers, and magazines, and the 
machmery of producing them. "All of us," he 
says, "were born into a home crammed with 
newspapers, books, perfectly familiar with types 
and ink and paper and proof-sheets and manu- 
scripts." The children wrote and printed books 
and newspapers. At one time "they wrote a 
whole library. It still exists — the Franklin 
Circulating Library — little booklets of perhaps 
three or four inches square, in which are printed 
by hand youthful tales in many volumes." Thus 
the boy was born, not with a silver spoon in his 
mouth, but with a pen in his hand, and acquired 
the kind of culture which can be acquired only 
during childhood and in a cultivated home. 

He entered Harvard College at thirteen years 
of age, after four years at the Latin School. 
There are no advantages without some con- 
pensating disadvantages. To an eager mind 
accustomed to living among books and getting 
knowledge by a process as natural as breathing 
the mechanical processes of the school were 
wearisome. "I may as well say," he says, "first 
as last, that school was always a bore to me. I 
did not so much hate it as dislike it as a nec- 
essary nuisance." Nevertheless, he proved him- 
self a good scholar, both in school and college. 
He had parts in the sophomore, junior, and senior 

103 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

entertainments and exhibitions; won college 
prizes for two dissertations; was one of the first 
eight in the Phi Beta Kappa; and graduated 
second in his class. 

The college in his time was scarcely less me- 
chanical than the school. The students learned 
their lessons and recited them to the professors. 
Young Hale got his lessons conscientiously, but 
found time in addition to read novels, study his- 
tory, hunt for wild flowers, do philosophical 
experiments, and take an active part in college 
student life. I am not sure but that a college 
course which allowed such students as Edward 
Everett Hale and Phillips Brooks time for their 
own independent intellectual activities would not 
afford better training than the modern course 
which fills the student's life so full of prescribed 
readings that he has no time to follow his own 
literary inclinations. Perhaps the modern meth- 
od is better for the average boy, the older 
method better for the eager student. Those 
pessimists who lament the tendencies of modern 
college life might do well to compare the college 
of 1917 with the following experience of young 
Hale in the college of 1837: 

"On conversing this morning with those who had been 
present at prayers, I found that there had been consider- 
able noise, and that one or two of our class were drunk. 
On going to morning prayers [they] found a good many 

104 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

panes broken in University window. There was a good deal 
of noise in Doctor Ware's recitation-room. There were 
one or two apples and a lemon which were being thrown 
constantly from one side of the room to the other, to the 
imminent danger of the heads they happened to be aimed 
at. In the evening after supper ... I heard a tre- 
mendous explosion which I thought was a pump blown 
up .... I found that either this, or a later ex- 
plosion which I did not hear, was made by a torpedo put 
on the sill of one of the windows of University." Ex- 
plosions followed every night for several nights, and these 
grew more serious as time went on. Three months later, 
"when we went to prayers this morning we found the 
chapel in great confusion, owing to the explosion of a bomb 
placed in front of the pulpit. The windows were all broken, 
almost every pane of glass being destroyed, the front 
of the high platform on which the pulpit stands was blown 
in, the plastering broken in several places where pieces 
of the shell had entered, woodwork of pews, window-panes, 
and seats hurt in some places, the clock injured, part of the 
curtain inside of the pulpit torn away, and a couple of in- 
scriptions in immense letters on the wall to this effect : 'A 
bone for old Quin to pick.' " 

Graduating at seventeen years of age, young 
Hale decided to enter the ministry. His mother 
especially, but also his father, had always desired 
him to be a minister, and his friends in college 
had known of his general intentions long before 
his graduation. "He did not, however, desire 
to study in the Divinity School. Just why, is not 
clear. Perhaps it was in part a piece of his life- 

105 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

long objection doing anything in a mechanical 
way, a feeling that made him through life critical 
of all institutional processes of education." So 
the son interprets his father's motive, I think 
correctly. Doctor Hale was by temperament and 
training an independent. He had no inclination 
to model himself after any prescribed pattern, 
and it would have been really impossible for him 
to be run into a mould. He had to be himself. 
He was preordained to be the architect as well 
as the builder of his own mind. 

The motive that took him into the ministry 
was not a profoundly spiritual one. "He was 
not," his son says, "very deeply impressed by 
the responsibilities and opportunities of a minis- 
ter's life." And he says himself: "One prime 
reason for the choice of my profession was my 
desire to be in a walk where I might press my 
general literature." His ambition, however, was 
not merely a literary ambition. He chose the 
ministry partly because it offered an opportunity 
for a literary pursuit, but also partly because it 
offered an opportunity to be "at the same time 
useful and helpful to all kinds of persons who were 
not so fortunately placed in the world as him- 
self." The first of these motives may have been 
the earlier one, but the second soon became and 
always remained the dominating motive of his 
life. 

106 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

The author of Genesis has described in a figure 
the secret of man's double nature. He was made 
of earth, but into him God breathed the breath 
of his own hfe. Jesus used this figure in a play 
upon words which I venture to interpret to the 
English reader by a paraphrase: "The breath 
of God bloweth where it will, and thou hearest 
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it 
cometh and whither it goeth ; so is every one that 
is born of the breath of God." Doctor Hale has 
left a record of his experience of this breath of 
God upon his own soul. He was in Albany, 
where he had gone to aid in an efi'ort which a few 
were making to establish a Unitarian church in 
that city. It was before his first pastorate. He 
was about twenty-two years of age; he was alone, 
a stranger in a strange city, and doubted whether 
the people of the so-called parish even knew that 
he was in town. Sixty years after, he described 
the experience which then came to him unsought 
but never to be forgotten : 

Perhaps it was to this loneliness that I owe a revelation 
which stands out in my memories of life. I had been read- 
ing in my musty, dark bedroom by an airtight stove. I 
think I was reading the Revue de Deux Mondcs. But I 
put the book down for what people used to call reflection, 
and I saw or perceived or felt that I was not alone and 
could not be alone. This Present Power knows me and 
loves me. I know Him and love Him. He is here, I am 

107 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

here. We are together. And it is a companionship much 
closer than I could have with any human being sitting in 
that chair. 

The biographer thinks that his father was a 
believer in theological doctrine. That depends 
upon what is meant by "theological doctrine." 
Theology is defined by the Century Dictionary 
as "The science concerned with ascertaining, 
classifying, and systematizing all attainable 
truth concerning God and his relation to the 
universe." I do not think that Doctor Hale ever 
was interested in ascertaining, classifying, and 
systematizing all attainable truth concerning 
God and his relation to the universe. In 1874, 
replying to an inquirer who had asked for some 
books which would explain to him the Unitarian 
faith. Doctor Hale replied: "What I do or do not 
happen to think about one thing or another is 
of very little consequence, if only I have the infi- 
nite help of God's holy spirit, which does come 
to any man who believes God is, that God loves 
him, and is eager to help him as being indeed his 
child." It was not the organization of thought 
but the abundance of life that interested Doctor 
Hale. To this correspondent he said, "Live 
with all your might, and you will have more life 
with which to live." 

This consciousness of God was the foundation 
of Doctor Hale's character and the inspiration of 

108 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

his ministry. "I know," he wrote in one of his 
letters, "that that divine spirit which guides us 
always, led me, even in boyhood, to choose such 
themes, shall I say, as the fit starting-places for 
the duties of the pulpit. That perfect love casts 
out fear, and that this love must show itself in 
action and not in word — this may be said to be 
a fair foundation for whatever the pulpit has 
to say or do." It is true that Doctor Hale was 
always a loyal Unitarian, and did very much to 
inspire modern Unitarianism. What he meant 
by Unitarianism he made clear by referring to 
its origin. "Unitarians," he said, "were first 
so called [in Hungary, 1563] because they be- 
lieved in the unity of religion for all Christians, 
whatever their especial creed, whether Lutheran, 
Calvinist, or Socinian." His Unitarianism was 
that of Doctor Martineau, who objected to the 
title, and permitted it under protest. Not the 
creed, but the spirit of a church which insisted 
that unity should depend on the spirit, held both 
of them loyal to the Church in which they were 
born. They were Unitarians because they both 
believed that the unity of Christendom should 
depend not on a common creed but on the unify- 
ing spirit of faith, hope, and love. 

But Doctor Hale was much more than a 
preacher of ethical culture, much more than a 
social reformer. It is true, as his son says, the 

109 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

father was one of the pioneers in the modern move- 
ment for social work; but that work was always 
inspired by his faith in the living God. "Hos- 
pitality, education, charity in the life of a church 
are all subordinate to worship," he said. This 
spiritual faith converted his early desire to be 
helpful into a passion for helpfulness. Charles 
Lamb and Leigh Hunt ceased to be his models. 
He enjoyed literature as a recreation, but he 
had no interest in merely playing with ideas. 
Thought became his instrument. His stories 
were parables. It will be difficult to find any- 
where a keener satire of that specious internation- 
alism which repudiates love of one's own country 
than is furnished by "The Man Without a 
Country"; or a better satire on the modern habit 
of self-measurement by the mere quantity of 
one's activity, than "My Double and How He 
Undid Me"; or a more inspiring interpre- 
tation of loyalty to Jesus Christ by service 
and sacrifice, rather than by profession, than 
the story "In His Name." The biographer tells 
us that his father regarded that as his best story, 
and I agree with him. It is not more popular 
than "The Man Without a Country," but it is 
the interpretation of a profounder life. 

Doctor Hale was naturally an individualist. 
The demands made upon him by the needs of the 
community in his first parish, the city of Wor- 

110 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

cester, and the call of his heavenly Father which 
those needs interpreted to him, made him from 
the beginning of his pastorate a social worker. 
Long before Doctor Parkhurst coined the phrase, 
"The church is the minister's force not his field," 
Doctor Hale had adopted this principle. Neither 
church nor pastor was concerned with spiritual 
experiences alone. "Wherever there were those 
who had no one else to stand by them in their 
social life — whether it were to help them to some 
work that should give them a daily wage or to 
offer them some association and fellowship which 
should make their lives happier or more effective 
— there, in his view, the Church of the Unity 
should be at hand to counsel and help." His 
first call to Boston, to a church well established 
and a congregation made up of older people, but 
without Sunday-school or benevolent institu- 
tions, he dechned. The second call to Boston 
won him because the church was largely made 
up of young people, energetic, wide awake, eager 
for work and for someone to guide them. What 
that church became under his organizing and 
inspiring ability, and what Doctor Hale became 
through its influence as a leader in every form 
of Christian philanthropy, are a part of the 
history of the American Church. 

I regard the Jewish and the Christian religions 
as essentially one religion, and the Old Testament 

111 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

and the New Testament as essentially one book. 
Judaism is that religion in the bud, Christianity 
is that religion in the blossom. What Isaiah 
promises, Jesus fulfils. And this is the only 
world religion that lays emphasis on the truth 
that the way to please the heavenly Father is to 
work with him for the happiness and welfare of 
his children. Edward Everett Hale's service 
of man was his way of serving God; his love of 
God inspired his love for his fellowmen. 

The difference between denominations is su- 
perficially a difference in creeds; it is really a 
difference in temperaments. It appears in the 
books of the Old Testament and in the Apostles 
in the New Testament. Matthew has the tem- 
perament of an historian; he represents histor- 
ical Christianity. John has the temperament 
of a poet; he represents mystical Christianity. 
Paul has the temperament of a philosopher who 
is also a poet ; he represents doctrinal Christian- 
ity. James has the temperament of a moralist; 
he represents ethical-culture Christianity. His 
definition of religion interprets his temperament: 
"Pure religion and undefiled before God and 
the Father, is this. To visit the fatherless and 
widows in their affliction and to keep himself un- 
spotted from the world." 

Doubtless Edward Everett Hale believed in 
historical Christianity, in mystical Christianity, 

112 



i ii 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

and in doctrinal Christianity, but his tempera- 
ment led him to put the emphasis of his life 
on practical Christianity. He was no agnostic; 
he did not substitute for the service of God the 
service of man. But his service of man was his 
service of God. In that respect he was typical 
of his age. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
were mystical, the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries were doctrinal, the twentieth century 
is practical. There is room in the heart of the 
Father for all his children; the time will come 
when there will be room for them all in the 
Church. 

Edward Everett Hale was always loyal to his 
denomination. He was a Unitarian partly be- 
cause he was born and brought up in a Unitarian 
home and a Unitarian church, partly because the 
climate of the Unitarian church suited his tem- 
perament. But the conception of God which 
illuminated his life and his writings were more 
Christlike than the conception of God which 
darkened some of the sermons of Jonathan 
Edwards, and his conception of religion as a life 
of service was more harmonious with the teach- 
ing of Christ than the conception of religion as a 
self-conscious godliness which famous saints in 
the past have struggled to attain. He never 
could have written the "Confessions of Au- 
gustine" or "John Woolman's Journal" but 

113 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

neither Augustine nor John Woolman could 
have written "In His Name," or the motto 
which is perhaps Doctor Hale's greatest con- 
tribution to religious literature: "Look up 
not down, forward not backward, out not in, and 
lend a hand." I wonder whether he realized at 
the time that he was simply translating into 
modern phraseology Paul's summary of Chris- 
tian experience: "Faith, hope, and charity, and 
the greatest of these is charity." Whatever was 
the occasion that led to his writing of that now 
world-famous motto, it is certain that it was the 
natural expression of his own inner life. 

He was care-free to a fault. His loose-fitting 
clothes indicated a wearer who cared more for 
comfort than for appearance. To have and to 
hold did not interest him; to be and to do, did. 
His eagerness to accomplish gave his work an 
ease and spontaneity which was the secret of its 
charm and one of the secrets of his power. 
Whether he was writing an article for a maga- 
zine or a letter to a friend, whether he was 
speaking to a friend or addressing an audience, 
he was essentially a conversationalist. Queen 
Victoria is said to have complained that Glad- 
stone always addressed her as though she were 
a public meeting. Doctor Hale always ad- 
dressed a public meeting as though it were a 
friend. That he put careful thought into his 

114 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

speeches was quite evident, but unless I am 
much mistaken he put that thought into what he 
would say and not into the form in which he would 
say it. Most New England ministers think in 
philosophic terms and then endeavour to translate 
their thoughts into the speech of the common 
people. Doctor Hale thought in the forms and 
phraseologies of the common people. 

He looked out not in. I do not think in all his 
writings is to be found a piece of self-examination 
such as characterized the writings of many of 
his Puritan forbears. He was more eager to 
serve God than to enjoy him, and enjoyed him 
by serving him. He neither practised nor ad- 
vocated spiritual vivisection. 

He was not a partizan of any party in either 
Church or State; nor the enlisted adherent of any 
cause. He was not an abolitionist, nor a pro- 
hibitionist, nor a socialist, nor was he enrolled 
in the ranks of their opponents. How catholic 
he was as a churchman an incident in my ex- 
perience illustrates : 

When, obedient to the command of my doctor, 
I resigned in 1898 the pastorate of Plymouth 
Church, I was in my sixty-third year and was 
depressed. My life interests had always been 
in my work and I thought my life work was over. 
It is true that I was still the editor of the Out- 
look, but I had visions of a gradual failure there 

115 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

also. Edward Everett Hale, before yet I had 
succeeded in getting my full release from Ply- 
mouth pulpit, asked me to preach for him for 
two successive Sundays, and when I declined 
because of my wife's earnest request that I take 
a few months of absolute vacation from all work, 
Doctor Hale renewed the invitation, extending 
the request the following year to four Sundays. 
Then I gladly accepted. The invitation no less 
than the service was a tonic. I have not been 
able to find any record of the sermons preached, 
but my recollection is that I took this opportun- 
ity to put before a Unitarian congregation my 
interpretations of The nature of man. The nature 
of Christ, The nature of sacrifice, The nature of 
the Bible. In doing so I omitted, as I have 
habitually omitted throughout the fifty years of 
my preaching, the much-battered words of con- 
troversial theology, such as Total Depravity, 
Trinity, Vicarious Atonement, Plenary Inspira- 
tion — words conspicuously absent from the 
Bible and generally from devotional literature. 
This omission was not due to any concession 
to Unitarian feeling, but to the fact that my 
aim in my religious teaching, whether by voice 
or pen, has never been to advocate a theology 
but always to promote spiritual life. Nearly 
twenty years of fairly active work in the pulpit 
and the press have passed since then, and I am 

116 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

still writing and preaching, but I can never for- 
get the debt of gratitude I owe to the minister of 
another denomination, often counted a hostile 
denomination, for the following letter, which 
Edward Everett Hale wrote me at the close of 
those four Sunday services. 

Jan. 29, 1900, Roxbury 
Monday morning. 
Dear Dr. Abbott: 

I shall stay at home this morning — so I shall not see 
you. 

All the same I want to thank you again for the four ser- 
mons: and to say that I am sure they will work lasting 
good for the congregation. 

More than this. I think you ought to think that such 
an opportunity to go from church to church and city to 
city — gives you a certain opportunity and honour — which 
even in Plymouth Pulpit a man does not have — and to 
congregations such a turning over the new leaf means a 
great deal. 

Did you ever deliver the Lectures on Preaching at New 

Haven. 5^ 

With Love always 

Always yours 

E. E. Hale. 

I have said that Doctor Hale was not an 
adherent of any cause. That sentence requires 
a word of explanation. He was an advocate of 
many causes but he did not belong to or train 
with any organized body of reformers. 

117 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

Previous papers in this book, especially the 
sketches of President Hayes and General Arm- 
strong, have indicated the radical division in the 
Republican party at the close of the Civil War, 
one section holding that if the ballot followed 
emancipation the work would be completed, the 
other holding that the ballot without education 
would be a peril not a safeguard. The attempt 
to follow emancipation with national aid to 
education after a vigorous and at first hopeful 
struggle, failed. Doctor Hale's interest in that 
attempt, in which Senator Hoar was a leader, is 
interpreted by himself in the following letter, 
which has an historical as well as a personal in- 
terest : 



UNITED STATES SENATE, 
WASHINGTON 

February 23, 1904. 
Dear Dr. Abbott : 

I have read with great interest your study of Mr. Hoar's 
character. It is an excellent review of the book. If you 
really want to know who killed the national education plan, 
when he was in the House, I think I can tell you. Dr. 
Gilman told me that he thought, and they all thought it 
was going through. It had the cooperation of some of 
the best southern men, of all the northern men not im- 
practicable and of the Cabinet; when it was savagely at- 
tacked by your friends of the New York Nation. It seems 
as if they acted on the general principle of attacking any- 
thing which seemed to promise well. Gilman thinks that 

118 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

but for them we should have had for twenty years a 
thorough system of education at the South supported by 
the National Treasury, 

I am to speak here one of the last days of March at the 
inauguration of the new President of Howard University. 
I believe I shall pronounce in favour of a national endow- 
ment of a dozen such schools as Hampton. Mead says, 
and I rather think he is right, that the seven battleships 
which they are trying to make us build this winter will 
cost more than all the endowments of all the colleges. 
This is so absurd that it seems as if it could be hindered. 

Truly and always yours 

Edward E. Hale, 

I have quoted this letter in full partly because it 
indicates Doctor Hale's possession of a quahty 
with which I do not think he is generally ac- 
credited, that of statesmanship. 

A great statesman, however wide and diverse 
his interests, generally accomplishes his result 
and wins his reputation by concentrating his 
life energies on some one achievement : Cavour, 
on the unification of Italy; Bismarck, on the 
creation of Imperial Germany; Gladstone, on 
leading England out from a feudalistic into a 
democratic basis; Abraham Lincoln, on creating 
a united and emancipated Republic. Edward 
Everett Hale was not, and in the nature of the 
case could not be, in this specific sense a states- 
man. He was a preacher, interested, as all 
preachers ought to be, in men and in whatever 

119 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

concerned the men of his time. But his clear 
comprehension of our Reconstruction Problem 
and our Industrial Problem showed him posses- 
sed of that apprehension of fundamental princi- 
ples and that prevision of future events which 
constitute at least two essentials of the mind of 
a statesman. 

In 1895 Mr. Albert K. Smiley invited to his 
hotel on the Shawangunk Mountain at Lake 
Mohonk a number of gentlemen and ladies to 
what came to be popularly but erroneously called 
a "Peace Conference," though at every session 
Mr. Smiley laid emphasis on the fundamental 
fact that it was not a mere peace conference but 
a conference to study the problem how a sub- 
stitute could be found for war as a means of se- 
curing international justice. The name he gave 
to the meeting was "Conference on International 
Arbitration." To that question Doctor Hale in 
the first session offered an answer which has 
since been practically accepted by the world's 
greatest statesmen. That speech is one of the 
very few I have heard in my lifetime which I 
dare attempt to report, in abstract, without the 
guidance of any manuscript, more than a quar- 
ter of a century after it was delivered. 

Arbitration, said Doctor Hale, is not the rem- 
edy. The remedy is a permanent court of justice, 
a supreme court of the nations analogous to the 

120 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

Supreme Court of the United States. Arbitrat- 
ors are selected after a controversy has arisen 
and passions and prejudices are aroused. They 
represent the two parties, generally with an um- 
pire to hold the balance between them. No 
fundamental principles are settled by their de- 
cision; only the immediate question is settled, 
and that usually by a compromise. A perma- 
nent court exists before the controversy arises, 
its existence tends to abate the prejudices and 
passions which that controversy would other- 
wise kindle, it is selected for the judicial 
character and impartial spirit of its members, 
its object is not primarily to secure peace but to 
establish justice, and by its decision it settles 
principles that will prevent future disputes of 
a similar character from arising. And he pro- 
posed a plan for such a court which, if I am not 
mistaken, does not differ essentially from that 
which Mr. Elihu Root and his colleagues have 
proposed and the European nations have ac- 
cepted for the International Court which it may 
well be hoped will be adopted and in session at 
no very distant date. 

This speech was as a lighted match applied to 
dry wood ready to be kindled. In May, 1896, 
the Outlook was able to say editorially: "It is 
considerably less than a year since Edward 
Everett Hale made his remarkable address be- 

121 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

fore the Peace Conference at Lake Mohonk, 
urging in lieu of International Arbitration the 
organization of a permanent tribunal, to which, 
as of course, all issues of civilized nations should 
be referred for settlement. The idea seemed 
then, probably, to those who heard him, that of 
a poet, who dared to present a moral ideal far in 
advance of his times, but which a future genera- 
tion might adopt. To-day it is seriously taken 
up, approved, urged by as wise and representa- 
tive an assembly of American jurists, statesmen, 
diplomats, and educators as has perhaps ever 
been brought together on our continent." And 
the Outlook added a report of various notable 
addresses and public meetings called without 
concert in various parts of the country to urge 
on Congress and on the country this plan of a 
permanent tribunal, culminating in a national 
meeting of the first public importance held that 
month in Washington. 

That from the first a permanent tribunal was 
in the thought of Doctor Hale no mere poet's 
dream is clear from the following extract from a 
letter which he wrote me ten years later, in 1906, 
preceding the Second International Conference 
at The Hague : 

I am really distressed that I cannot be at the Conference, 
but I cannot. , , . I wish that your Conference 

122 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

might simply consider itself as preparing for the Hague 
Conference — and that you could rule out all that did not 
really help that way. As I have said to Friend Smiley, 
"Cut off the Frills and Feathers." 



Doctor Hale was not an international lawyer, 
but he had a definite sense of the value of inter- 
national law and a definite and evidently practi- 
cable plan for substituting in the settlement of 
international disputes an appeal to reason for 
the appeal to force, by appealing to the judicial 
department of government in lieu of appealing to 
the military department. In this he was in 1895 
so far in advance of the age that even yet, more 
than quarter of a century after, the statesmen 
have not got his simple, and now generally ac- 
cepted, plan in working order.* 

Neither was he a constitutional lawyer. But 
he had very definite ideas respecting the funda- 
mental principles of the United States Constitu- 
tion and the rights and liberties both of local 
communities and of individuals which it was in- 
tended to safeguard. To these ideas he gave 
characteristic expression in a keen but good 
humoured criticism of some of our public teachers 
in the press. He put a high value on personal 



*He preached in 1889 at Washington a sermon in which he foretold the creation of a 
Permanent International Court, probably to be suggested by the United States. See 
"The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale," by Edward Everett Hale, Jr., Vol. II, 
pp. 381. 2. 

123 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

liberty and believed that the development of the 
capacity for self-government would require time 
and patience and was worth taking some risks 
of temporary misadventure. I wonder what he 
would say to-day to the passion for power which 
incites in some reformers the desire to regulate 
by law the cut and length of ladies' dresses and 
the height of the heels of their shoes. The 
passion for governing other people is no longer 
confined to EngHshmen, Scotsmen, and Irish- 
men: 

UNITED STATES SENATE 
WASHINGTON, D.C. 

My Dear Friend: Dec. 14, 1904. 

• • • • 

So many Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen are en- 
gaged on our newspapers that editorials get printed in ab- 
solute ignorance of the Principles of the Government or 
even of Administration. Godkin, for instance, knows as 
little of the Constitution as I do of the interior of the For- 
eign Office at Ispahan. I have seen the Tribune speak of 
the President as the Ruler of America. 

Hearst's paper spoke of the Nation as having the original 
Right to the soil or coal of Pennsylvania. The women 
think that Congress can make a Divorce Law for Massa- 
chusetts. I wish you would make somebody write a stiff 

article about this. 

Always 
Edward E. Hale. 
To Dr. Lyman Abbott. 

124 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

This letter was dated, the reader will observe, 
from Washington. It was written in the eighty- 
seventh year of his age while he was fulfilling his 
last public service, that of Chaplain to the United 
States Senate. He kept his lively interest in 
public affairs and his boyish humour to the end. 
He died in June, 1909, eager to the last. On 
June 6th he wrote in his diary: "Doctor Temple 
had forbidden my preaching to-day. . . . 
The first White Sunday in 65 years without a 
White Sunday sermon." 

On June 10th he died. 



125 



JOHN G. WHITTIER, MYSTIC 

WHITTIER," says Mr. Higginson, "was 
a politician before he was a reformer." 
In 1832 he would probably have been 
nominated for Congress, but had not quite 
reached the constitutional age of twenty-five 
years when the election occurred. He was 
an enthusiastic admirer of Henry Clay, for 
whom he wrote several spirited campaign 
poems. But when the Slavery issue arose he was 
drawn into the anti-slavery ranks. He at first 
cooperated with Garrison, but could not agree 
in either temper or methods with that acidulous 
reformer. If not a leader, he was a wise coun- 
sellor in the gradually developing party of liberty. 
He unsuccessfully urged the Liberty party not 
to make a separate nomination for President in 
1860. "Do not gratify your enemies by making 
any nomination," he wrote to Elizur Wright. 
After the Mexican War he urged his fellow- 
abolitionists not to oppose the admission of 
Texas into the Union, but to fight against its 
admission as a slave state. He was mobbed for 
his anti-slavery utterances and on one occasion 
his life was in serious peril. If his health had 

126 



JOHN G. WHITTIER 

permitted, he might perhaps have been a pohtical 
leader in those troublous times, for he had prin- 
ciples,, courage, tact, and ambition. But he was 
without means. "My brother and myself," he 
wrote, "are almost constantly engaged in the 
affairs of our small farm." And he was without 
health. In 1830 his physician warned him that 
he had not a year to live unless he gave up his 
political work. From the storm and stress of 
political campaigning he was driven to quieter 
but more enduring activity with his pen. 

When I knew him, this was all past history. 
The Civil War w^as over; the slave was emanci- 
pated; abolition was an accomplished fact. If 
my treacherous memory can be trusted, I first 
met him some time in the 'seventies in the hos- 
pitable home of Governor Claflin of Massachu- 
setts. I wonder if there is any man of wealth in 
our time whose home is dedicated to the uses to 
which their beautiful home in Newtonville was 
dedicated by Mr. and Mrs. Claflin. It was a 
meeting-place of preachers, authors, reformers. 
I lay down my pen for a moment and recall them 
— men and women all of whom have now joined 
the choir invisible. Mrs. Stowe, Henry Ward 
Beecher, John B. Gough, John G. WQiittier, 
Charles Dudley Warner, Miss Sarah Orne Je- 
wett, are a few of those in the procession that 
passes before me. Once I attended a house 

127 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

party given by Mrs. Claflin to a selected com- 
pany, parents and children, gathered from the 
North End of Boston for their poverty and their 
need. A gaunt woman, one of the guests, ap- 
proached the hostess with the question: "What 
made you think of doing this? Jesus Christ told 
you, didn't he?" "Yes," said Mrs. Claflin, 
"I guess he did." "I thought so," was the re- 
ply, "I knew you couldn't have thought of it 
yourself." 

Mrs. Claflin in her "Personal Recollections of 
John G. Whittier" reports a conversation be- 
tween Whittier and Emerson from which de- 
fenders of the faith might well take a lesson in 
theological tactics: 

Whitter. I suppose thee would admit that Jesus Christ 
is the highest development our world has seen. 
: Emerson. Yes, yes, but not the highest it will see. 

Whittier. Does thee think the world has yet reached 
the ideals he has set for mankind? 

Emerson. No, no, I think not. 

Whittier. Then is it not the part of wisdom to be con- 
tent with what has been given us, till we have lived up to 
that ideal? And when we need something higher Infinite 
Wisdom will supply our needs. 

I wonder what Emerson replied. 

In the summer of 1878 1 called on Mr. Whittier 
in his country home, Amesbury, Massachusetts. 
Had he invited me when I met him at the 

128 



JOHN G. WHITTIER 

Claflins? Or had I a letter of introduction to 
him? Or, being a journalist, had I more enter- 
prise than modesty? I do not know. I only 
remember with what hospitality I was received 
and how gladly I accepted the invitation to stay 
to dinner. Of Amesbury I have no recollection 
whatever. Indeed I am not sure whether it was 
at Amesbury I found him. That was forty-two 
years ago, and the picture I retain is faded. All 
I remember is a story -and-a-half New England 
cottage by the roadside, simple furniture, a 
simple meal, two middle-aged ladies who were 
apparently the joint housekeepers, and the poet- 
prophet himself. He must have then just passed 
his seventieth year. No one would call his face 
handsome; it was better, it was beautiful. The 
features were homely, though the forehead was 
high and the eyes were luminous. The photo- 
graph but poorly represents him. For his face 
was a transparency; the spirit within lighted it 
up; and photographs rarely, the older photographs 
never, interpret the spirit. His illuminated face 
has made quite real to me the picture given in 
Exodus, of Moses when he descended from the 
mount where he had talked with God and "his 
face shone." Whittier's was a shining face. 

Mr. Whittier's friends have told me that he 
rarely talked about himself. I can well believe 
it. I do not recall that he told me anything 

129 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

about his early adventures as an anti-slavery re- 
former. I know that I was surprised when long 
after I learned from his biographers of his po- 
litical ambitions and activities. But that after- 
noon it was the poet and prophet, not the re- 
former, whom I met; and he talked freely with 
me of his religious experience. Perhaps he real- 
ized that he was talking to a comrade of half 
his years who was eager to get the light and life 
he had to give. Perhaps it was because his 
thought was not upon himself, but wholly upon 
that light and life, as was my thought also. 
Why did I not go back to my hotel in Boston and 
write it all down while it was fresh in my recol- 
lection? I do not know, except that I had from 
my early youth a prejudice against the diaries 
and journals so popular at that time and never 
have kept one myself, save in occasional starts, 
soon abandoned. Nor shall I attempt now to 
recall that sacred conversation. But it led to 
some brief correspondence, and that I may put 
before the reader because in it Mr. Whittier 
will speak for himself. 

Going back to my editorial oflSce, I presently 
wrote to him asking him for an article on the Re- 
ligion of the Spirit. The reader must remember 
that at that time such books as Sabatier's "Re- 
ligion of the Spirit," Matheson's "The Spiritual 
Experience of St. Paul," Hoching's "God in 

130 



JOHN G. WHITTIER 

Human Experience," were very few, and such as 
existed were little known. In reply to my re- 
quest I received the following letter : 

Bearcamp River House 
West Ossipee, N. H. 
4th 9 Mo. 1878 
My Dear Friend : 

I wish that I could comply with thy request, but the 
state of my health at this time forbids it. 

I entirely agree with thee. The only safe and impreg- 
nable position in these days, is the doctrine of the Divine 
Immanence — the inward Guide and Teacher. What 
Fenelon calls "the inexpressible voice of Christ in the 
soul." Believing and feeling this we have nothing to 
fear from the revelation of science or the criticism which 
assails the letter and the creed. 

In the Sept. Atlantic I have endeavored to give ex- 
pression to the mystics of the Romish Church in the 
15th century who were believers in a purely spiritual re- 
ligion, independent of creed, ritual or even the outward 
letter of Scripture. 

The only real proof of the inspiration of the sacred books 
is that we find the laws and the prophets in our own souls, 
— that our hearts burn within, as we walk with Christ 
through the New Testament — that the hymns of David 
have been sung in our own hearts, — that the Sermon on 
the Mount accords with our intuitions. 

Have thee ever read Barclay's Apology or Dymond's 

Essays on Moral Philosophy? The subject is well treated 

in them. 

I am very truly, 

thy friend 

John G. Whittier. 

131 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

The contribution to the Atlantic Monthly to 
which he refers was '*The Vision of Eckhard," 
now famihar to the readers of his works. From 
it I venture to extract four verses because by 
this letter he makes it clear that the vision of 
Eckhard is also the vision of John G. Whittier: 

For the dead Christ, not the living 

Ye watch his empty grave 
Whose life alone within youL 

Has power to bless and save. 

O blind ones, outward groping 

The idle quest forego; 
Who listens to his inward voice 

Alone of him shall know. 



My Gerizim and Ebal 

Are in each human soul 
The still small voice of blessing 

And Sinai's thunder roll. 

The Stern behests of duty 

The doom books open thrown, 

The heavens ye seek, the hell ye fear 
Are with yourselves alone. 

The above letter from Mr. Whittier was writ- 
ten as the reader will see, in April, 1878. In May, 
1879, he wrote me again on this subject. The 
Friends' Review had published what was in- 

132 



m 



JOHN G. WHITTIER 

tended to be a commendation of a religious ar- 
ticle of mine in the Christian Union. What 
that article was I do not know, and I have not 
thought it worth while to spend any time in look- 
ing it up; for the object of this sketch is not to 
define or to defend my own theological opinions, 
but to interpret the spiritual faith of Mr. Whit- 
tier or rather to give the reader Mr. Whittier's 
own interpretation of that faith. The paragraph 
in the Friends' Review to which Mr. Whittier 
ixifers and which he had cut out and sent to me 
in his letter was this. His comment follows the 
extract: 

Lyman Abbott points out how dim is the light given to 
men by the Spirit compared with the full blaze of the reve- 
lation'of God and of His truth given in the Gospel. And 
how the effect of the light vouchsafed to men immediately 
begets a longing for a personal Saviour — leads to Christ. 

J- 5 Mo 6 1879 

Danvers 

My Dear Friend : 

I enclose to thee a notice of the S.S. Lesson in the Chris- 
tian Union on Job XXXIII, 14-30 which appeared in the 
Friends' Review (a paper which professes to advocate 
Friends' principles) — of the 12th ult. 

It is evident that the writer has greatly misrepresented 
thy views, so contrary to those expressed in some of thy 
Editorials. If the light given imviediately by the Holy 
Spirit is dim, what must that be which comes to us through 
the medium of human writers in an obsolete tongue? Is 

133 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

the bible more and better than the Spirit which inspired 
it? Shall the stream deny the fountain? 

The writer in the Review evidently has adandoned the 
root principle of the early Friends and really has no re- 
liance upon anything but the letter. 

Thy friend 

John G. Whittier. 

In my library there has been accumulated a 
large amount of material — letters, pamphlets, 
newspaper reports of sermons and lectures, and 
the like. In this material I have found a sermon 
of mine on "John G. Whittier's Theology," 
preached in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, in 
1893. It is said in this sermon that the faith 
once delivered to the saints is not a creed or 
form of doctrine; "it is always a personal ex- 
perience in the heart of the individual" — "a 
seed planted which takes on many forms and 
many growths." I quote here a few sentences 
from an embodiment or expression of this faith 
in the biography of John G. Whittier, from which 
I quoted more fully in that sermon:* 

God is One; just, holy, merciful, eternal, and almighty. 
Creator, Father of all things. Christ the same eternal One, 
manifested in our Humanity, and in Time; and the Holy 
Spirit the same Christ, manifested within us, the Divine 
Teacher, the Living Word, the Light that lighteth every 
man that cometh into the world. 



*I presume that this expression of Whittier's faith is to be found in the authorized 
biography by Samuel T. Rickard, Houghton Mifflin Company. 

134 



JOHN G. WHITTIER 

The Scriptures are a rule, not the rule of faith and prac- 
tice, which is none other than the living, omnipresent 
spirit of God. The Scriptures are a subordinate, second- 
ary, and declaratory rule, the reason of our obedience 
to which is mainly that we find in them the eternal pre- 
cepts of the Divine Spirit, declared and repeated, to which 
our conscience bears witness. 

My ground of hope for myself and for humanity is in 
that Divine fulness of love which was manifested in the 
life, teachings, and self-sacrifice of Christ. In the infinite 
mercy of God so revealed, and not in any work or merit of 
our nature, I humbly yet very hopefully trust. 

I am not a Universalist, for I believe in the possibility 
of the perpetual loss of the soul that persistently turns 
away from God in the next life as in this. But I do be- 
lieve that the Divine love and compassion follow us in all 
worlds, and that the Heavenly Father will do the best that 
is possible for every creature he has made. What that 
will be must be left to his infinite wisdom and goodness. 

Writing this sketch as I am approaching my 
eighty-fifth birthday, I accept this admirably 
clear and comprehensive statement as an ade- 
quate expression of my own spiritual faith, de- 
veloped by over sixty years of Bible study and 
Christian teachings; and I gratefully wonder if 
I am not more indebted for that faith to John G. 
Whittier's influence than I have ever before 
realized. 



135 



GENERAL SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARM- 
STRONG, EDUCATIONAL PIONEER 

THE Civil War destroyed the industrial 
system of the South and put nothing in 
its place. War never does put anything 
in the place of what it destroys. It does not 
reform; it only prepares the way for others to re- 
form. The Negroes set free by emancipation 
gathered in extemporized camps; white refugees 
gathered with them. In such camps these refu- 
gees, outcast by the war, had to be fed, clothed, 
and sheltered temporarily while a new labour 
system was organized. The difficulties in the 
way of such organization seemed at the time 
almost insuperable. 

The slave-holding class had an affection for 
their slaves, but no respect. Their feeling has 
been not inaptly compared to that of a good 
master for a loyal dog. Cotton was the staple 
product of the South, and it was the prevailing 
opinion that cotton could be raised only by slave 
labour. That in half a century Negroes would 
be lawyers, doctors, merchants, bankers, suc- 
cessful planters, and in increasing numbers 
landowners, would have seemed as preposterous 

136 



GENERAL SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 

a prophecy as that men would be outflying the 
birds. Many in the South beUeved that some 
form of serfdom must follow slavery, temporarily 
if not permanently ; more were dazed by the rev- 
olution and knew not what to expect or what 
to prepare for. 

The North had no affection for the Negro, was 
glad that he was in the South, and hoped that he 
would stay there. But the inherited opinion that 
labour should be free had been converted by the 
Civil War into a passionate conviction. That 
emancipation must be followed by a process of 
industrial reconstruction was realized by only a 
few leaders. The dominating political and eco- 
nomic philosophy of the decade might be stated 
thus: 

The Negro is a white man with a black 
skin. We have struck the manacles from his 
wrist and made him free. Let him go where he 
likes and do what pleases him for what wages he 
can get. Give him the ballot and he can pro- 
tect his freedom; give him an education and he 
will use his freedom aright. Meanwhile, public 
and private charity may see that he does not 
starve, and the beginnings of education can be 
attempted by missionary and philanthropic asso- 
ciations. The period of transition cannot be 
very long. 

But the prejudice against Negro education was 

137 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

not confined to the South. ''Nigger teacher" 
was a term of reproach in some circles in the 
North as well, and one of the early Freedmen's 
Aid Societies "was rent asunder by the un- 
willingness of a part of its members to cooperate 
in any movement looking toward the education 
of the Negro, though they were willing to pro- 
vide him with food and clothing in order to pre- 
vent suffering and death."* 

Something such was the chaotic state of public 
opinion when in the winter of 1866 General S. C. 
Armstrong called on General 0.0. Howard, head 
of the Freedmen's Bureau, and asked for an ap- 
pointment. He was the son of missionary par- 
ents in Hawaii, a graduate of Williams College, 
had received there inspirational training from 
Mark Hopkins, author of "The Law of Love and 
Love as a Law," on graduating had entered 
the Army, had received a baptism of fire at 
Gettysburg, and as colonel of a Negro regiment 
had acquired a familiar acquaintance with the 
Negro's temperament and character, and had 
earned promotion by his notable service in the 
Southern field. General Howard discerned in 
the young brigadier-general a kindred spirit. 
Both were brave soldiers, both earnest Christians, 
both convinced believers in the right of all men 



*Special Report on the Results of Emancipation by the American Frecdmen'i Uniot- 
Commission, 1867. 

138 



GENERAL SMIUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 

of whatever race or colour to be treated justly 
and given an opportimity for self -development. 
General Armstrong never wore his heart upon 
his sleeve; but no one could be in his presence 
fifteen minutes and not realize that he had a 
heart. General Howard put him in charge of a 
camp near Hampton, Virginia, an appointment 
which gave him control as agent of the Freed- 
men's Bureau over ten counties in Virginia and 
as Superintendent of Schools over the edu- 
cational work in a large, loosely defined area em- 
bracing those ten counties. His description of 
his charge is quoted here from one of his early 
official reports. 

Coloured squatters by thousands and General Lee's dis- 
banded soldiers returning to their families came together 
in my district on hundreds of "abandoned" farms which 
the Government had seized and allowed the Freedmen 
to occupy. There w^as irritation, but both classes were 
ready to do the fair thing. It was about a two-years' task 
to settle matters by making terms with the landowners, 
who employed many labourers on their restored homes. 
Swarms went back to the "old plantations" on passes 
with thirty days' rations. 

There were seven thousand Negroes within a 
radius of three miles from General Armstrong's 
office, thirty-five thousand in his district, and 
eight thousand rations were distributed every 
day to those who but for these rations would 

139 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

have died of starvation. By appeals to friends 
in Boston he found places of domestic service in 
the North for nearly [a thousand refugees. In 
October, 1866, three months' notice having been 
given, all rations were stopped except for those 
in hospitals, and he was able subsequently to re- 
port that "trouble was expected, but there was 
not a ripple of it or a complaint on that day." 
He attributes this to the spirit of the Xegroes. 
"Their resource was surprising. The Negro in 
a tight place is a genius." I attribute it quite 
as much to the confidence of these children in 
their new care-taker, a confidence which he won 
in a surprisingly short time. 

From the first General Armstrong seemed to 
get, as by inspiration, a clear idea not only of 
what had to be done but how to do it. Slavery 
had destroyed industrial ambition in the South. 
Work done under compulsion, whether from the 
lash or from hunger, never is and never can be 
inspiring. To convert slave labour into free labour 
required a change in the spiritual habits of the 
Negro. Mr. Lincoln had said that God had 
given every man one brain and a pair of hands 
and it looked as though he intended that brain 
to control that pair of hands. But this state- 
ment had secured but little attention. There 
were no industrial schools in the United States, 
North or South, unless two or three engineering 

140 



GENERAL SAISIUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 

schools like the Troy Polytechnic and the Stevens 
Institute may be so regarded. Providing in- 
dustrial education for the Negro met with bitter 
opposition. Southern aristocrats thought that 
any education would spoil him; Northern abo- 
litionists thought that industrial education dis- 
criminated against him. 

If I had space, I should devote it to an ap- 
preciative sketch of the work which, immediately 
at the close of the war, various missionary so- 
cieties of the North undertook for the education 
of the Negroes. An army of teachers entered 
the South before the army of soldiers left it. 
Hundreds of men and women, as self -devoted as 
General Armstrong, offered their services for the 
difficult and thankless task. Of the societies en- 
tering this work the American Missionary As- 
sociation was one of the first and most important. 
It was organized before the Civil War because 
neither the home nor the foreign missionary 
societies would bear their testimony against 
slavery, and when slavery was abolished it saw 
in the hordes of ignorant Negroes its opportunity. 
In the beginning of his work General Armstrong 
was dependent both for moral and financial sup- 
port on this society. But this sketch is a por- 
trait of General Armstrong, and must pass by 
without further mention the educational army 
with which he always cordially cooperated. 

141 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

From the first he saw clearly what not all of 
his contemporaries saw, that it was not enough 
to transfer the New England schoolhouse to 
the Southern states. From the first he had an 
almost unique vision of the unique need of the 
hour, and to the realization of that vision he and 
his successor, Doctor Frissell, gave their lives 
with single-hearted and untiring devotion. Their 
object I state here in a sentence from memory 
as Doctor Frissell once stated it to me. "The 
object," he said, though I am not quoting his 
words, "is to give the Negro boys and girls what 
the State gives by the public school. The public 
school gives the education; the family provides 
the support for the pupil while he is studying. 
Hampton gives the education to the pupil; and it 
provides productive work which enables the pupil 
to feed and clothe himself." The pupils were 
paid for the work, not in cash, but in credit on the 
books of the school. 

From the first Hampton Institute was a 
Christian school — Christian, but not anti-Jew- 
ish; Protestant, but not anti-Catholic; indus- 
trial, but not anti-cultural. From the first also 
it preserved Negro traditions and respected the 
Negro temperament. A satirical writer years 
ago criticized Christian missions in the East as 
an endeavour to make middle-class Englishmen 
out of native Hindus. There was no attempt at 

142 



GENERAL SA:MUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 

Hampton to make Yankees out of Africans. 
Every Sunday evening the whole student body 
gathered in the chapel and spent half an hour 
singing the Negro spirituals, followed by a brief 
address. The custom is still kept up. Never 
has death seemed to me more friendly, or the 
celestial world only an "Other Room" adjoining 
this in God's great house, than when I have heard 
those eight hundred voices join in singing "Swing 
Low, Sweet Chariot." From the first the school 
has never officially recognized a difference in the 
rights or privileges of the races. Hampton is in 
fact a Negro school. But there is nothing in its 
constitution or its charter to prevent white pupils 
from being admitted. A large portion of the 
money gi-anted to the institution was given on 
the express condition that all should be admitted 
without condition as to colour, and the charter 
granted by a Virginia Legislature in 1870 ac- 
cepted this condition. 

The school was opened in 1866 with fifteen 
pupils; on April 26th it had thirty pupils doing 
manual work in the morning and studying in the 
afternoon and evening. In 1918 I \4sited the 
school. It then had 140 buildings; 1,100 acres 
of land; 1,802 pupils, including those who at- 
tended the summer school; 2,098 graduates, be- 
sides 7,500 who had gone out from Hampton 
after having taken a partial course. With the 

143 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

exception of the church, capable of seating about 
fifteen hundred, and the Robert C. Ogden 
Auditorium, seating about twenty-five hundred, 
and possibly two or three cottages, all the build- 
ings have been erected by the students them- 
selves and all the farm work and all the household 
work of the school, including that of an inn upon 
the grounds, is done by the pupils. 

What has been called, I think without exag- 
geration, the most efficient and capable indus- 
trial school in the United States, if not in the 
world, is primarily due to an extraordinary corps 
of co-workers, dominated by the same spirit and 
guided and inspired by two leaders of singularly 
different temperament, but inspired by the same 
spiritual ambition — General S.C. Armstrong and 
Dr. H. B. Frissell. If life is a campaign, then 
Armstrong may be compared to General Sheridan 
and Frissell to General Thomas; if life is a gar- 
den, then Armstrong selected the site, ploughed 
the ground, sowed the seed and planted the seed- 
lings, and Frissell weeded, pruned, trained the 
growing plant, and harvested the crop; if life is a 
school, then Armstrong gave life to the pupils, 
Frissell discovered unconscious life in the pupils 
and developed it in them. General Armstrong 
was a pioneer, Frissell a teacher, Armstrong a 
creator, Frissell an organizer. I wish I had space 
to essay a snapshot of them both, but I must con- 

144 



GENERAL SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 

fine myself here to the one selected to be the 
subject of this sketch. 

I do not find in his daughter's biography any 
description of General Armstrong's appearance. 
The faded shadow-picture in my memory is that 
of a young man, somewhat under six feet, of slim 
build but broad shoulders, with no superfluous 
flesh, erect in pose, with keen eyes that looked 
not at you but into you, and an electric energy 
at once physical and moral. 

I say young man, for he had up to the last 
the charm of youth. To him every day was a 
new beginning. In every day was the freshness 
of interest w^hich belongs to youth. He would 
never have passed the dead line of fifty, not if he 
had lived to be a hundred. He lived in the pres- 
ent for the future. I never heard him talk of 
the past, would hardly have known that he had 
been a general in our Civil War except for the 
soldier's title which fitted him so perfectly that 
he could not have laid it off if he had tried. I 
was surprised when I began the preparation of 
this article to learn that he was only four years 
my junior. I had always thought of him as a 
much younger man. Years, infirmity, failing 
health, did nothing to abate his unquenchable 
humour. One da3% after paralysis had laid him 
aside from work and his physician had prescribed 
for him a walk of a few hundred yards as his only 

145 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

exercise, he was taking the prescription with his 
intimate friend, Robert C. Ogden. They were 
talking of the Everting Post, and Mr. Ogden 
asked General Armstrong what he thought of 
its editor, Mr. Godkin. "I think," said General 
Armstrong, "that he would begin the Command- 
ments with T am the Lord thy Godkin, thou 
shalt have no other Godkins before me.'" 

He was an electric battery, and in his writing, 
his conversation, his speeches he scintillated. He 
was unconsciously epigrammatic. Spontaneous 
epigrams, always kindly, though often keen, 
made him an intensely interesting conversation- 
alist. When you talked with him, you naturally 
said only enough to start him talking or to keep 
him going. From his daughter's biography I select 
by chance a few of these spontaneous epigrams: 

"Laughter makes sport of work." 

In a speech to his students — "Spend your 
life in doing what you can do well. If a man can 
black boots better than anything else, what had 
he better do? Black boots." 

After a visit to some of the missionary schools 
in the South in answer to the question, "What 
was your impression .f^" — "One sweetly solemn 
thought comes to me o'er and o'er." 

To his students — "Doing what can't be done 
is the glory of living." 

To the argument at Lake Mohonk that a cer- 

146 



I 



GENERAL SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 

tain policy he had proposed was impossible — 
""VMiat are Christians put into the world for but 
to do the impossible in the strength of God?" 

From letters — "Philanthropy is the thief of 
time." 

"The chief comfort of life is babies. Institu- 
tions are a grind, humanity a good deal of a 
bore; causes are tiresome; and men of one idea 
are a w^eariness." 

"\Miat you spend on yourself you lose; what 
you give you gain." 

"Wlien it comes to the scratch, I believe in the 
prayers of the unorthodox — why are they not as 
effectual as smy? From the deep human heart to 
the Infinite Heart there is a line along which will 
pass the real cry and the sympathetic answer — 
a double flash from the moral magnetism that 
fills the universe." 

"Human life is too weak to be an incessant 
flight toward the Sun of Righteousness. Wings 
will sometimes be folded because they are wings." 

"God's kings and priests must drudge in seedy 
clothes before they can wear the purple." 

"To get at truth, divide a hyperbole by any 
number greater than two. ... In animated 
narratives divide facts by ten." 

Such spontaneous epigrams as these are both 
revealers of character and inspirers to life. A 
"table talk" of General Armstrong on the plan 

147 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

of the "table talk" of Coleridge and that of 
Luther would be a classic. 

With this freshness of interest in life was com- 
bined the courage of youth, but not the rashness. 
Rashness leaps before it looks; courage looks be- 
fore it leaps; timidity does not leap at all. The 
wise man in asking, What shall I do.'' takes coun- 
sel of courage; in asking, How shall I do it? 
takes counsel of caution. It is because General 
Armstrong was both inspired by courage and 
guided by caution that he won the confidence of 
men who had no ambition to be pioneers. He 
wanted for his school a building which would cost 
seventy -five thousand dollars; he had on hand 
two thousand dollars. He used the two thou- 
sand dollars to dig the cellar and lay foundations, 
and so had a "mute appeal" to speak to the 
visitors from the North who came down to lay 
the corner-stone, and it talked to good purpose. 
The students learned brickmaking by making the 
brick and bricklaying by building the walls, and 
at the end he had made both a building and the 
builders. The vision appealed to the idealists, the 
method to practical men — and he got the money. 

I felt that by the triple task that he had set 
himself he was killing himself. To overcome 
race prejudice in the South, to educate for useful 
service^Negroes at Hampton, and to create in the 
North an understanding of the problem and at 

148 



GENERAL SAMUEL CHAPIVLiN ARMSTRONG 

the same time the means to carry the work on 
was too much for any one man to undertake. I 
joined with other friends in urging him to secure 
a permanent endowment for Hampton, and so 
reUeve himself from the Northern campaigning. 
"Yes," he rephed in substance, "I would like 
an endowment for Hampton; we need it. But 
I do not wish to avoid the begging campaign. 
To educate the North is as important for the 
Nation as to educate the South and the Negro." 
At the same time that the old Abolition Society 
was formally by resolution disbanding because 
nothing remained for it to do. General Arm- 
strong was organizing his campaign to carry for- 
ward the work which the Abolition Society had 
only begun. "It failed to see," said he, "that 
everything remained. Their work was just 
beginning when slavery was abolished." He 
was right. No historian can adequately esti- 
mate the value of the service to our national 
development rendered by the campaigns carried 
on in the North by General Armstrong, Doctor 
Frissell, Booker T. Washington, and the Chris- 
tian churches. To these campaigns we owe the 
consciousness that the race problem is a national 
problem, and with that consciousness a better 
mutual understanding between the North and 
the South and between the white and the 
coloured races. 

149 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

With this youthful interest, this cautious cour- 
age, this ever-reinvigorated energy, was coupled 
a spirit of humility which I have not often found 
in men who do things. He had self-confidence, 
but was singularly free from self-conceit. I had 
written in what was then the Christian Union 
an article about Hampton, not then known and 
honoured as it is to-day, and received from him 
the following characteristic letter of appreci- 
ation : 

Parker House 
Boston, December 18, 1884. 
Dear Dr. Abbott : 

Thanks for your kind article in the last Xian Union on 
Hampton. 

It is very cordial and earnest and will do good. It is 
not easy to live up to where you place me. The true 
prayer for a man in a responsible position is — 

Lord, help me to not make an ass of myself. I often 
pray this fervently. . . . 

Yours sincerely, 

S. C. Armstrong. 

I have no doubt that this was true. With all 
his seeming abandon he walked '^circumspectly." 
Yet his abandon was not a seeming. One of 
his teachers tells me the following incident illus- 
trating his habitual self-forgetfulness. To one 
of the Hampton boys was assigned the care of 
the General's house and waiting on him at his 
meals, for the General ate with the rest of the 

150 



GENERAL SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 

teachers in a room in the students' hall. As this 
teacher was passing out from dinner the General 
beckoned to her for some consultation and was 
immediately absorbed in the business in hand. 
Presently, his eyes fixed on the teacher and his 
mind on their topic, he took up the mustard pot 
at his side and, without turning his head, reached 
it out toward the waiter. The boy took it, for 
a moment was puzzled, then smiled, put down 
the mustard pot, took up the General's tea-cup 
and brought it back refilled, and the General 
took it and went on with his meal and his con- 
versation, quite oblivious of the little comedy in 
which he had taken a part. 

He did not live in a "fool's paradise." "Mere 
optimism," he said, "is stupid; sanctified com- 
mon sense is the force that counts." But 
neither did he live in a fool's purgatory. "It 
remains to make the best of things. Those who 
are hopeless disarm themselves and may as well 
go to the rear; men and women of faith, opti- 
mists, to the front. ' ' The cynic scoffs at those who 
will not face facts; but there is no man who so 
persistently refuses to face facts as the cynic. 
General Armstrong saw the evil in men, but also 
saw the good, and instinctively, and without 
knowing it, gave life and power to the good. 
There is no work which seems to me so discourag- 
ing as "raising money" — the need seems so im- 

151 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

perative, the public so apathetic. General Arm- 
strong apparently believed that if you know how 
to strike the rock in the desert you can always get 
water. "Begging trips," he called them, and he 
rejoiced to escape from them to the more congen- 
ial companionship of the school at Hampton, but 
his habitual attitude toward the apathetic North 
was one of cheer. "I never cease to wonder," 
he wrote in one of his reports, "at the patience 
and kindness of those who daily listen to appeals 
from here [Hampton] and some other quarters, 
the wear and tear of which can be hardly less 
than that of those who solicit aid from these 
overtaxed givers." 

He carried the same spirit into his campaign 
appeals for teachers to give themselves. The 
difficulty of his job appealed to him, and he be- 
lieved that it would equally appeal to others. 
Life was to him what a game is to the chess player 
— the more difficult the problem, the more in- 
teresting it is. Thus his appeals were what 
Christ called a fan; they separated the wheat 
from the chaff, discouraged the timid and self- 
distrustful, inspire^ and attracted the courageous 
and self-denying. Professor Peabody in bis 
story of Hampton quotes the following sum- 
mons from General Armstrong to Miss Helen 
W. Ludlow, which he rightly calls "one of the 
classic passages of Hampton literature." 

152 



GENERAL SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 

Hampton, September 27, 1872. 
Dear Miss Ludlow: 

Five millions of ex-slaves appeal to you. Will you 
come? Please telegraph if you can. 

There's work here and brave souls are needed. If you 
care to sail into a good hearty battle where there's no 
scratching and pin sticking but great guns and heavy shot 
only used, come here. If you like to lend a hand where 
a good cause is shorthanded, come here. 

We are growing rapidly; there is an inundation of stu- 
dents and we need more force. We want you as teacher, 
"Shall we whose souls are lighted?" etc. Please sing 
three verses before you decide, and then dip your pen in the 
rays of the morning light and say to this call, like the 
gallant old Col. Newcome, "Adsum." 

Sincerely yours, 
S. C. Armstrong. 



Miss Ludlow responded to the bugle call "as 
though called into action," and was in the school 
from 1872 until 1910, some years after the Gen- 
eral's death. 

My impression is that General Armstrong was 
a Congregationalist; but he did not belong to the 
Congregational denomination; he did not belong 
even to Hampton Institute. He belonged to God 
and to God's world. So far as I know, he never 
talked about his spiritual experience. I find 
in his autobiographic fragments two very sig- 
nificant sentences. One: "I would rather min- 
ister than be a minister." The other: "True 

153 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

worship is a gentle, sensitive, shrinking emotion 
that steals softly into hearts in quiet moments, 
often in response to some beautiful scene; some- 
times it comes to us from the faithful true ones 
near us." 

Two favourite religious books of his are said to 
be Thomas a Kempis's "Imitation of Christ," 
the most archaic and ecclesiastical of devotional 
literature, and "Amiel's Journal," the most 
modern and least ecclesiastical. 

After his death a memorandum was found 
among his papers from which I quote three 
paragraphs : 

Few men have had the chance that I have had. I never 
gave up or sacrificed anything in my life — have been, 
seemingly, guided in everything. 

Prayer is the greatest thing in the world. It keeps us 
near to God — my own prayer has been most weak, waver- 
ing, inconstant, yet has been the best thing I have ever 
done. I think this is universal truth — what comfort is 
there in any but the broadest truth? 

I am most anxious to get a ghmpse at the next world. 
How will it seem? Perfectly fair and perfectly natural, 
no doubt. We ought not to fear death. It is friendly. 

To this glimpse of his inner life, the source of 
his charm and of his power, no friend would wish 
to add anything. 



154 



GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH, 
HOME MISSIONARY PIONEER 

WHEN the Salvation Army first made its 
appearance in the United States, I 
shared the hostile prejudices of most 
Christian people. The military organization, 
the uniforms, the cheap music, the street meet- 
ings, and the public prayers arrayed against the 
Army my democratic principles, my Puritan 
tastes, my temperamental reserve. The the- 
ology seemed crude, the preaching emotional, 
the piety loud, exhibitory, pretentious. But 
when a little later I spent several winter months 
in England, I found there the saloon keepers and 
the gamblers to a man arrayed against the Army; 
and the moralists and churchmen divided in 
opinion concerning it. The naive confessions 
of Salvation lads and lassies uttered between the 
drum beats in the street had not been convincing 
evidence of its value; but the fact that generally 
where it went saloon habitues and drunken 
brawls decreased in number outweighed all criti- 
cisms of its offences against taste. And when 
on one of General Booth's visits to America, 
I think in 1886, I was invited with half-a-dozen 

155 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEjVIPORARIES 

other gentlemen to meet him at "breakfast" I 
gladly accepted the invitation. 

At this breakfast I found myself a guest of an 
Englishman unmistakably of the so-called mid- 
dle class, but one who possessed in a notable 
degree the qualities which Stormonth's (Eng- 
ish) Dictionary attributes to a gentleman: "a 
man in any status of life who is possessed of good 
breeding and refined manners, strict integrity 
and honour, kindness of heart and such-like 
qualities." I found in him, moreover, a man 
singularly free from that moral partizanship 
which is a common defect in moral reformers. 
One of his principal reasons for inviting the half- 
dozen men who gathered about his breakfast 
table to meet him was that he might get at the 
truth respecting the drinking habits in America. 
One of his guests was the editor of a weekly jour- 
nal of national circulation, one an author whose 
volume on American life and manners had a more 
than national reputation, one a journalist whose 
connection with the newspaper fraternity gave 
him special advantages for knowing the social 
customs in every section of the country. And 
it was a noteworthy circumstance that all agreed 
in the testimony that there was more drinking 
and less drunkenness in America than there had 
been in our boyhood. 

The desire to get at the exact truth on a ques- 

156 



GENERAL WILLIAI^I BOOTH 

tion of vital interest, the capacity to receive and 
weigh it, and the abihty to keep his own counsel 
were three characteristics in General Booth 
which impressed me as preeminent in that 
memorable interview. His biography by Harold 
Begbie portrays a man in his earlier years of great 
intensity of feeling. To one who criticized him 
for going too fast he replied: "What do you 
mean ? I know no ' Flying Dutchman ' or ' Flying 
Scotchman,' or any other kind of flying railway 
train that goes fast enough for me. Time is so 
precious that unless it can be spent in sleeping 
or working, every minute of it is begrudged, and 
my feeling whenever I seat myself in a train is, 
'Now, engine driver, do your best and fly away.' " 
But when I met him, probably in 1886, his natu- 
ral impetuosity was tamed and harnessed. The 
impression he left on me was that of a man of 
great power, both physical and spiritual, but 
power under absolute control. 

This introduction seemed necessary in order 
to inform the reader that the following shadow- 
picture of General Booth, based on Mr. Harold 
Begbie's interesting Life of the General, is 
sketched by one who might perhaps call himself 
not an unprejudiced historian but a bi-partizan 
historian, one who is accustomed to measure all 
religious movements not by their conformity to 
traditions and conventions but by their practi- 

157 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

cal effect on conduct, and whose first inherited 
prejudices against the Salvation Army have been 
conquered by some study of its fruits and some 
acquaintance with its personnel. Some of its 
methods I could never employ, most of its work 
I should be incompetent to undertake, to its 
military discipline I should find it very difficult 
as a member to submit, but ever since that mem- 
orable interview with its founder I have been, 
whenever the opportunity afforded, a hearty and 
even enthusiastic supporter of its beneficent 

work. 

William Booth was born on April 12, 1829. 
His father was an unsuccessful business man 
whose disappointed ambitions were almost 
wholly materialistic. The son described him 
significantly but irreverently in the sentence: 
"My father was a Grab, a Get." He lost his 
money and died brokenhearted. His mother 
was probably of Jewish origin. After her hus- 
band's death she set up one of those little shops 
which the traveller is almost sure to see in any 
English town or village, perhaps wondering how 
the shopkeeper gets enough out of it to pay the 
rent. The boy was apprenticed to a pawn- 
broker because his father thought this business 
would give the son the best chance to make 
money; and in the first years of his life he was 
divided between a commercial ambition and a 

158 



GENERAL WILLIAM! BOOIH 

spiritual aspiration. "The three steady things 
in his mind were," says his biographer, "first, 
the determination to get on in the world ; second, 
the ambition to work for political change; and 
third, a longing to right himself with God." 
The longing to right himself with God was 
strengthened and intensified by his attendance 
at Methodist meetings, and particularly by the 
preaching of one evangelist by the name of 
Caughey, but the origin of his spiritual restless- 
ness neither William Booth nor his biographer 
attempts to explain. "How I came," says Mr. 
Booth, later, "to this notion of religion, when I 
saw so little of its character manifested around 
me, sometimes puzzles me." It was not, how- 
ever, only his own lack of religion that oppressed 
him. He was made by his business familiar 
w^ith poverty and was burdened, not merely by 
the material poverty but even more by the 
spiritual poverty which was constantly before 
him. He felt more and more the call of the 
streets; more and more he realized that spiritual 
poverty was the real cause of the wretchedness 
with which in his business he w^as continuously 
in contact; and this restlessness in himself and 
this realization of the wretchedness of others 
about him became at length an irresistible call 
to the ministry. 

At that time in England, especially in London, 

159 



SILHOUETTES OF MY C0NTE:MP0RARIES 

humanitarianism was regarded as the hobbj' of 
a few fussy philanthropists. Little concern was 
shown by the churches for the bodies of men. 
There was no system of national education; no 
idea of housing reform; no factory legislation; 
no provision for poverty but the poorhouse. 
There were voices crying out, sometimes with pity, 
sometimes with indignation, for reform — Dickens, 
Lord Shaftesbury, Carlyle, Ruskin, John Stuart 
Mill, Cobden, and Bright; but none of these had 
the support of the churches, and none of them was 
inspired by any recognized and avowed religious 
motives. These reformers all addressed them- 
selves to the cultivated and comfortable people 
of England. The voice which was to compel the 
attention of the English people to conditions at 
once shameful and dangerous came, curiously 
enough, from an evangelist whose education had 
been in the pawn-shop. 

William Booth was able afterward to fix on 
the day when this change in his life from the 
pawn-shop to the pulpit took place, a change 
which was to have so extraordinary an influence 
on the religious life, not only of England, but 
of the world. A ^lethodist minister offered him 
financial support for three months if he would 
devote himseh' to preaching. The youth ac- 
cepted the offer, notified his master of his pur- 
pose, packed his portmanteau, and went out to 

160 



GEXER.\L V^ILLIAM BOOTH 

begin a new life. Three things, he afterward 
wrote, marked this dav: It was Good Fridav: 
it was his birthday; and. "most important of all. 
was that on that day I fell over head and ears in 
love with the precious woman who afterv^'ard 
became mv wife." Catherine ^Mumtord be- 
came not only a devoted wife and an in.-piring 
companion but a wise counsellor, and by her wis- 
dom and devotion earned the title of "Mother 
of the Salvation Army." Mr. Begbie character- 
izes her in a few sentences as "an able, masterful, 
and brilliant young woman, who delighted in 
table controversies, who was somewhat proud 
of her logical adroitness, and was able, brilliant, 
daring, and righteous to a fault; but one doubts 
if her heart at that time had asserted its equal 
partnership with her brain." 

William Booth, before formallv entering on the 
ministry, had attracted attention in the ]Metho- 
dist Church by occasional and not infrequent lay 
preaching, and was from the first a real though 
somewhat rude and unconventional orator, who 
moved his audiences by his profound conviction, 
his passionate faith, and his power of dramatic 
interpretation. His theology' he had imbibed 
from the Christian Church of that epoch. 
"This earth occupied the central place in the 
stellar universe; man, created in perfection, had 
chosen sin and had rejected God; God, in his 

161 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

mercy, had visited and redeemed man; man had 
it in his power, every man, to accept or to disdain 
that redemption; everlasting happiness would 
be the lot of those who accepted, everlasting 
misery the lot of those who rejected the divine 
mercy." "This was," says his biographer, 
"the absolute and indubitable theology of the 
whole of Christendom." 

The preachers of that time believed that they 
believed it; but William Booth realized it, and 
in his preaching it was apparently simplified to 
this: The human race is in rebellion against 
God; Jesus Christ has come to conquer that re- 
bellion; Christianity is war against the devil and 
all his works; the duty of every individual is to 
lay down the weapons of his rebellion and join the 
forces of Christ; and the duty of the preacher is 
to call for recruits. This with William Booth was 
not a theological opinion, but from the first a 
vivid experience. He believed that this war was 
going on in his own soul, that it was going on in 
the souls of all men, and that this revolt against 
God was the cause of the poverty, the wretched- 
ness, the degradation, and the sin which were at 
once the shame and the peril of England. I 
cannot see from his biography that he ever 
preached what would ordinarily be called the- 
ological sermons — sermons the object of which 
was to prove or to define the Trinity or the 

162 



GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH 

divinity of Christ or the vicarious atonement 
or the infalhbiHty of the Bible. Theological 
theories did not interest him. What he sought 
after was the rescue of human life from the 
degradation and misery which were the results 
of the revolt against God and the rejection of 
God's law and God's love. 

This applied Christianity he pressed home 
upon audiences with passionate earnestness and 
with dramatic power. His biographer quotes 
an account which General Booth has given of 
one of his earliest sermons : 

I described a wreck on the ocean, with the affrighted 
people clinging to the masts between life and death, waving 
a flag of distress to those on shore, and, in response, the 
lifeboat going off to the rescue. ... I reminded my 
hearers that they had suffered shipwreck on the ocean of 
time through their sins and rebeUion; that they were sink- 
ing down to destruction, but that if they would only hoist 
the signal of distress Jesus Christ would send off the life- 
boat to their rescue. Then, jumping on the seat at the 
back of the pulpit, I waved my pocket handkerchief round 
and round my head to represent the signal of distress I 
wanted them to hoist. 

One reads this account without a thrill, per- 
haps even with amusement; but if the reader 
had been one of an emotionl audience under the 
spell of this orator's passionate faith and believed 
that this grotesque act was the natural expres- 

163 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEIVIPORARIES 

sion of the orator's genuine feeling, it would not 
seem to him grotesque. 

Crowds flocked to hear this new preacher. 
The Methodist chapels would not hold them. 
Scores crowded to the altar to seek for prayers 
or to confess themselves converted. Young 
Booth went to London to pursue some studies 
better to fit himself for his life-work, but the call 
of the congregations followed him and proved 
irresistible. Doubtless the peculiar fascination 
of an audience for a born orator attracted him; 
but far greater was the impelling power of the 
young preacher's faith that really the world of 
men were doomed to perish in an endless con- 
flagration unless they were rescued by the in- 
stant and energetic efforts of individuals who 
had been already rescued. Inspired by that 
faith, he could not refuse to respond to calls 
which came to him from many quarters. To 
the woman who was about to become his wife 
he writes of his reception in Lincolnshire : " My 
reception has been exceedingly pleasing. Even 
the children laugh and dance and sing at my com- 
ing, and eyes sparkle and tongues falter in utter- 
ing my welcome. Yesterday I had heavy work. 
Chapel crowded. Enthusiasm ran very high. 
Feeling overpowering, and yet not the crash we 
expected. My prospects for usefulness seem un- 
bounded. But God knows best, and where He 

164 



GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH 

wants me, there He can send me." And again: 
"Yesterday I preached to crowded congre- 
gations, and we had a crushing prayer meeting. 
Some splendid cases." 

But his sermons were not merely dramatic, 
they were apparently well thought out. He 
thanks Catherine Mumford for an outline that 
she sends him and asks for more : "I want a ser- 
mon on the Flood, one on Jonah, and one on the 
Judgment. Send me some bare thoughts; some 
clear, startling outlines. Nothing moves the 
people like the terrific. They must have hell- 
fire flashed before their faces, or they will not 
move. Last night I preached a sermon on 
'Christ weeping over sinners', and only one came 
forward, although several confessed to much 
holy feeling and influence. When I preached 
about the harvest and the wicked being turned 
away, numbers came. We must have that kind 
of truth which will move sinners." In this re- 
quest he indicates what was always the purpose 
of his preaching. It was not to instruct men in the 
truth. It w^as to move them to instant decision. 

Pages of Mr. Begbie's Biography of General 
Booth are taken up in describing the problems 
the young preacher met, the difficulties he en- 
countered, and the courage and energy with 
which he encountered them. He w^as always 
subject to what would now probably be caUed 

165 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

nervous dyspepsia. He married a wife who was 
always an invalid, and he divided his time un- 
evenly between nursing her and ministering to 
the public. He was too independent to submit to 
ecclesiastical authority which endeavoured to 
curb his impatient spirit, or to accept money on 
conditions which required from him submission 
to any kind of authority. At one time, later in 
his ministry, money and, the author thinks, prob- 
ably a fine hall in East London at a cost of some- 
thing like 7,000 pounds, were offered to General 
Booth, together with a generous settlement upon 
both Mr. and Mrs. Booth if he would consent to 
settle permanently in East London and not roam 
about; and the offer was promptly declined. 

No man can enter upon such an undertaking 
as that of General Booth in such a spirit as 
his without awakening strong opposition. The 
greatness of his spiritual ambition appalled some, 
the intensity of his faith rebuked others; some 
of his methods provoked not unreasonable criti- 
cism; the very greatness of his popular successes 
excited jealousy in his contemporaries. Greater 
than any of these obstacles, perhaps greater than 
all combined, was the coldness of the churches 
and the hardness of the world. "If," says Mrs. 
Booth, writing to her mother, "the present effort 
disappoints us, I shall feel quite tired of tugging 
with the churches and shall insist on William 

166 



GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH 

taking a hall or theatre somewhere. I believe 
the Lord will thrust him into that sphere yet. 
We can't get at the masses in the chapels." 
At one time he thought sincerely of uniting with 
the Congregational churches for the sake of the 
larger liberty which the Congregational policy 
would give him. But the theology of the Con- 
gregationalism at that time was Calvinism, and 
the Calvinistic theology held that man could 
not repent without the special grace of God. Its 
honest acceptance would have required a fun- 
damental reconstruction of William Booth's 
message. When in reading a theological treatise, 
which a Congregational minister lent to him, he 
reached this conclusion, he threw the obnoxious 
book to the other side of the room, and never 
after considered the proposal to accept a theo- 
logical servitude in order to escape an ecclesias- 
tical servitude. 

WTien the Methodist Conference decided to 
recall him from the work of an evangelist and 
assign him to a circuit, he left the Methodist 
Church, went to London, and started there the 
"Christian Mission." It appears to have been 
a purely individualistic enterprise; where the 
funds came from is not clear. Out of this 
Christian Mission, which continued its work in 
London for a year or two, grew, by a natural 
process, the Salvation Army. 

167 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

Having once laid off the harness of the Church 
WilHam Booth never took it on again. At one 
time prominent dignitaries in the Episcopal 
Church desired to make an alliance with the 
Salvation Army, so that it would become, if not a 
branch, at least a recognized instrument, of the 
Church of England, But this would have re- 
quired a tacit, or at least an apparent, recognition 
of the principle that acceptance of the two his- 
toric creeds of Christendom and the two sacra- 
ments. Baptism and the Lord's Supper, were 
necessary to complete acceptance of Christian- 
ity.* To this General Booth would not consent. 
Many, probably most, of the crowd were gath- 
ered from the slums. To them the sacraments 
were obstacles, not aids, to the Christian life. 
Mr. Booth's attitude toward the sacraments 
was the attitude of Paul toward circumcision: 
neither Baptism and the Lord's Supper nor the 
absence of Baptism and the Lord's Supper prof- 
iteth anything, but a new creature in Christ 
Jesus. Though Mr. Booth had been baptized 
and doubtless had often partaken of the Lord's 
Supper, his study of the Bible convinced him 
that neither Baptism nor the Lord's Supper was 
required by Jesus Christ, and he would not re- 

*In 1833 the High Church party in the Church of England had agreed upon the state- 
ment "that the only way of salvation is the partaking of the Body and Blood of our sacri- 
ficed Redeemer, that the means of this is the Holy Sacrament of His Supper, and the se- 
curity for the due application of this is the Apostolical commission." See "John Keble: 
A Biography," by Walter Loch, M.A. 

168 



GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH 

quire them of his converts, although he cordially 
assented to their voluntary use by those who 
desired them. 

But neither did kneeling for prayer and 
professed Christian conversion satisfy him. He 
wanted to see a changed life, and often he 
did see a changed life. Gradually experience 
drove him to the conclusion that the only way 
in which he could lastingly change men and 
women was to make them from the moment of 
their conversion seekers and savers of the lost. 
From almost the birth of the Salvation Army 
its two fundamental principles were: Work 
with men if you would work for them, and work 
to make them Christian workers. 

Mr. Booth had been in London over twenty 
years before the Christian Mission took on the 
name of Salvation Army and adopted sub- 
stantially an army organization and General 
Booth assumed the title and the powers of a 
commander-in-chief. For ten years more it re- 
mained largely a recruiting organization, though 
carrying on important philanthropic work. 
Then the philanthropic work received a new im- 
pulse and a new importance. 

Late one night in the year 1888 William Booth, 
returning to London from a campaign in the south 
of England, crossed one of the bridges on the 
Thames, and was thunderstruck to find sleeping 

169 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

there men and women in huddled forms on the 
stone benches. In the morning he greeted 
Bramwell, his oldest son, who had become his 
chief-of-staff and his understudy, with an im- 
perious demand that something be done. "Do 
something, Bramwell," he cried, "do something. 
Get a shed for them, anything will be better than 
nothing; a roof over their heads, walls around 
their bodies." Almost simultaneously sentence 
of death from cancer was pronounced upon Mrs. 
Booth by the doctors after a careful consultation. 
Watching at the bedside of his dying wife, while 
the shelter- and food-depots which he had set 
up were inadequately meeting the demand of 
outcast humanity, he wrote what was to prove 
an epoch-making book, "In Darkest England." 
Upon its publication in 1890 I wrote in what was 
then the Christian Union that "the essential 
principle of this volume lies at the foundation 
of any effective and far-reaching philanthropy; 
this, namely, to use the waste of modern civili- 
zation in providing for the men and women whom 
modern civilization wastes." 

By this volume William Booth knocked at the 
door of rich, comfortable, and complacent Eng- 
land, and pointed her to the beggar who lay at 
her threshold uncared for. The publication was 
the sensation of the hour. Its author met with 
a storm of abuse. He was declared to be un- 

170 



GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH 

truthful, an exaggerator, an alarmist, a vision- 
ary, impracticable,, demanding the impossible, 
seeking to cure the incurable, and at the same 
time he was denounced by Single-Taxers and 
Socialists for seeking only to alleviate what so- 
ciety ought to cure. He was even accused of 
being an ambitious self-seeker aiming to create 
an organization of which he would be the head 
and which would be dangerous to the State, a 
covetous self-seeker aiming to secure vast sums 
of money of which he could have the absolute 
control. Most important, or at least most promi- 
nent, among these accusers was Mr. Huxley, 
whose extraordinary charges the curious reader 
can find to-day in one of the volumes of his 
Essays. 

The charges of Mr. Huxley against the Sal- 
vation Army may be briefly stated in two sen- 
tences: First, that it is a military organization 
in which "everyone has taken service on the 
express condition that he or she will obey without 
question or gainsaying the orders from head- 
quarters"; second, that "the process of degra- 
dation of the organization into a mere fanatical 
intolerance and personal ambition, which I de- 
clared was inevitable, has already set in and is 
making rapid progress." 

The first criticism assumes that Christians 
may never unite in a military organization in 

171 



fc' 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

order more effectively to fight organized evil. 
That is a proposition which I hold to be entirely 
untenable. The Salvation Armv is not a church; 
General Booth made this very clear: "I do not 
want to found a sect," he said. It is an in- 
strument which offers itself to the churches to 
carry on certain aspects of their work for which 
their organization does not adapt them. If a 
free state may have an army to protect the legal 
rights of its citizens, the churches may have an 
army to resist the subtler but equally dangerous 
attacks against the innocent and the ignorant by 
forces of evil which a state has not made illegal and 
perhaps cannot make illegal. The Church is not 
merely a worshipping and teaching organization ; 
it is also a working and at times ought to become 
a fighting organization. The cross is in some 
places a summons to war, and in no place more 
so than in the great cities in our civilized States. 
A liquor saloon in London was carried on for 
the purpose of coining money by creating beasts 
out of men. Mr. Booth raised the necessary 
money, partly out of contributions by the poor, 
bought the saloon and turned it into a Salvation 
Army hall. No sooner had the conversion been 
made than such a storm broke upon him as we 
in these days can scarcely imagine. " Hooting 
mobs besieged the place by day and by night, 
the worst pimps and crimps of London stoned it; 

172 



GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH 

drunken and savage gangs armed with sticks 
and stones assailed it; for some months the place 
had to be guarded by police, on many occasions 
with drawn truncheons. William Booth was 
many times in grave danger of his life." 

A body of Christian men and women form a 
league for the purpose of promoting purity, tem- 
perance, and honesty in a community where law 
has allowed such conditions to grow up. The ob- 
ject of the league is not merely to control these 
conditions; it is to abolish them. Have they a 
right to organize a society on military principles 
and give to the leader the authority of a com- 
mander-in-chief.^ To that question who will not 
reply "Yes!" And such conditions, though in 
less aggravated form, are to be found in every 
great city in the civilized world. To conduct a 
successful campaign against them may well be 
thought to require an army. Those who think so 
and have enlisted in a campaign whose most war- 
like implements are a drum and a fife, deserve our 
whole-hearted support, not our cynical hostility. 

Mr. Huxley's second criticism — that the proc- 
ess of degradation of the organization into a 
mere engine of fanatical intolerance and personal 
ambition — received its answer from the "jury of 
the vicinage" in WiUiam Booth's lifetime. The 
violent campaign of abuse which even Mr. Hux- 
ley's honoured name was unable to make re- 

173 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

spectable, burned itself out in less than a score of 
years. 

A committee of prominent Englishmen in- 
vestigated the administration of the "Darkest 
England Funds," gathered and administered 
for the conduct of its campaign by the Salva- 
tion Army, and after thorough examination re- 
ported in detail the careful, thorough, and ade- 
quate provisions which had been made against 
any misappropriation of money. Since the last 
edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica an- 
nounces that "the opposition and ridicule with 
which Booth's work was for many years received 
gave way, toward the end of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, to very widespread sympathy as his genius 
and its results were more fully realized," I do not 
think it necessary to give any further atten- 
tion to this transient, heated, and sometimes vio- 
lent campaign of calumnity. It burned itself 
out in less then a score of years. 

General Booth's history of the conditions in 
England and of the Army's campaign against 
them, entitled "In Darkest England," was pub- 
lished in 1890. In 1905, fifteen years later, the 
Freedom of the City of London was presented to 
General Booth, together with a subscription of 
one hundred guineas to the funds of the Sal- 
vation Army, and he lunched with the Lord 
Mayor and a select company. It was character- 

174 



GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH 

istic of the man to take advantage of this oc- 
casion to make a plea, not for himself nor for the 
Army, but, to use his own words, "for the drunk- 
ard, the harlot, the criminal, the pauper, the 
friendless, the giddy, dancing, frivolous throngs." 
A little later he was asked to be a vice-president 
of the Bible Society and was given the degree of 
D.C.L. by the University of Oxford. His visits 
to iVmerica during these later years of his life 
were an ovation. At the request of royalties 
he had interviews with the sovereigns of Den- 
mark, Norway, and Sweden, the Emperor of 
Japan, Queen Alexandra, the Dowager, Empress 
of Russia, the Prince and Princess of Wales in 
England. I imagine that of all these recep- 
tions and testimonials two must have preemi- 
nently impressed him: One, a letter from the 
well-known skeptic Goldwin Smith, who wrote, 
"It is a signal testimony to the spiritual power 
of the founder of Christendom that so many 
centuries after His death such a work should be 
done under His inspiration and in His name"; 
the other, the popular reception given to him at 
Japan, a feature of which was two prayer meet- 
ings in which no less than five hundred people 
came on to the stage, seeking with cries and 
tears the salvation of God. 

To the end of his life General Booth con- 
tinued a profoundly religious man. He lived 

175 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

and died believing that the salvation of society- 
depended on the salvation of the individuals of 
whom society is composed, that men would 
never be brought into right relations with each 
other unless they w^ere first brought into right 
relations with God. But as he grew older his 
creed became simpler. In his speech to the Lord 
Mayor of London, delivered in 1905, when he 
received the Freedom of the City of London, he 
defined, not indeed the creed, but the religion of 
the Salvation Army in terms which not all Chris- 
tian believers would regard as adequate but to 
which it is scarcely possible that any Christian 
believers could object as erroneous : 

The religion of the Salvation Army is very simple; any 
one can understand it. It says to a man: "You must 
worship God, consecrate yourself to his service, and do 
what you can for the benefit of those who are around you. 
You must be good and true and honest and kind and do all 
you can for the benefit of your family and friends. You 
must persevere as the days go by, and so shall you have a 
peaceful dying-bed and a blissful immortality." 

Having exerted perhaps as wide an influence 
on the religious thought and life of the world as 
any man in his time, he died in England in the 
eighty-fourth year of his age, honoured by his 
country, revered by his followers, and beloved by 
his friends. There might well be inscribed upon 
his tombstone as the motive of his life the words : 
"A friend of publicans and sinners." 

176 



DANIEL BLISS, FOREIGN MISSIONARY 

PIONEER 

I LAST saw him probably seven or eight years 
ago. He had passed his eighty -fifth birth- 
day and was about returning to his home in 
Syria. He had been a missionary in that land 
for more than half a century, and for thirty-six 
years president of the Syrian Protestant College. 
The graduates of that college gave him a fare- 
well supper in New York at a downtown Syrian 
restaurant. I had the good fortune to be one 
of the comparatively few American invited 
guests. He sat in an easy chair that had been 
provided for his comfort. His body was aged 
and getting beyond possible repair. But he had 
all the intellectual courage, the welcoming sym- 
pathy, the broad interest, the unfaltering cour- 
age, and the genial humour which had made him 
as a young man a pioneer and a chosen leader 
among pioneers. When it came time for him to 
reply to the cordial farewells that had been 
spoken, his son helped him to his feet, and, 
leaning upon his crutch, his beautiful face fully 
framed by his long white hair, he began his 
speech thus: 

177 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

"Boys! in this last speech that I shall ever 
make to you I will repeat the first speech I ever 
made as a schoolboy: 

" 'You'd scarce expect one of my age 
To speak in public on the stage.'" 

He was born to be a teacher. No one is fitted 
to answer the questions and solve the problems 
of youth who has not in his own youth formed the 
habit of asking questions and facing problems. 
When he was eight or nine years old he cut off 
one of his toes with a scythe in the hay -field. This 
started in his mind the question what would be- 
come of that toe in the resurrection. His father 
could give him no better answer than that the 
resurrection was a great mystery, but God was 
able to raise the dead. He had patience as well 
as curiosity, and the question remained un- 
answered for twenty years, when he reached the 
conclusion: no resurrection of the body; God 
shall give a new body. In narrating this inci- 
dent, he adds : " Since studying Paul I have never, 
except in memory, seen bones flying in space in 
search of the old body." 

In the first half of the nineteenth century ask- 
ing questions about religion was generally re- 
garded as dangerous. An old minister remon- 
strated with the youthful inquirer. "Dan," he 
said, "you are the most dangerous boy in town." 

178 



DANIEL BLISS 

"Why, what evil have I done?" "None; that 
is the trouble. If you were drunk half the time, 
your influence would not be so bad. You 
neither lie, swear, drink, nor quarrel, and others 
point at you and say, 'Dan Bliss is not a Chris- 
tian, and yet what a good boy he is.'" 

He carried the same spirit with him to college. 
Graduating in 1852, when the anti-slavery agi- 
tation was at its height and Congress had passed 
a resolution that there should be no agitation of 
the Slave question during the session, he took 
for the subject of his graduating address: 
"Agitation." The spirit of the address is suf- 
ficently indicated by a single sentence: "Truth 
can lose nothing by agitation but may gain all; 
and Error can gain nothing but lose all." 

It indicated both the spirit of the American 
Board and the non-combative spirit of the young 
collegian that, three years later, young Bliss, still 
engaged in that quest for truth which every suc- 
cess converts into a braver quest, obtained an 
appointment as a missionary to Syria and set sail 
with his bride in a sailing vessel of three hundred 
tons burden. Mrs. Bliss has left a graphic de- 
scription of the perils of what proved to be a 
perilous voyage. 

In 1843 Doctor van Dyck had established a 
high school in Syria, which in three years had de- 
veloped into an academy for the training of 

179 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

teachers and preachers. In 1855 it had twenty- 
four students and its curriculum included physics 
and the higher mathematics taught from Arabic 
textbooks prepared by Doctor van Dyck himself. 
Little attention was paid to the English lan- 
guage, but much to the study of the Bible. 

It was the success of this school or academy 
probably that led to the suggestion in 1862 of an 
institute for the higher learning in Beirut. It 
was resolved at a gathering of missionaries to 
attempt it, and Mr. Bliss was chosen as its princi- 
pal. Its object was to be, not proselytizing, but 
education; its aim, to furnish an education equal 
to that of the better American colleges; the 
language of the lectures and the textbooks, 
Arabic. It was an undertaking that required 
an audacious faith and an inexhaustible patience. 
The undertaking was sure to meet bitter hos- 
tility from the Turkish Government, for apos- 
tatizing from the Moslem faith was punishable 
by death. "A delegation of Druses called on 
the wife of a Druse seminary student who was 
seeking admission to the Church and asked her 
permission to kill him." Even to this day very 
few of the students either in the Syrian College 
in Beirut or in Robert College in Constanti- 
nople are of Turkish parentage. It could have 
at first little welcome from the Syrian Christians, 
for they were divided into bitterly hostile sects. 

180 



DANIEL BLISS 

*'Mr. Bliss's maidservant, who was a member of 
the Greek Church, was threatened with death 
by her own family when she encouraged a Prot- 
estant suitor." There was no money, for these 
missionaries had no notion of taking mission 
funds to support an educational institute which 
was not the object for which the funds were 
given. The money must be raised in England 
and in the United States, and there was opposi- 
tion to the enterprise in both countries. To 
train ministers was all very well, but to prepare 
boys for other callings — business, law, medicine, 
engineering, literature — was quite another mat- 
ter. Sectarian differences at home as well as 
sectarian differences abroad had to be overcome. 
The movement was interesting to all Christians 
and therefore did not interest any particular 
denomination. 

Not least of the burdens to be borne was the 
great variety of tasks imposed upon those who 
were now proposing to add to them the task of 
building a college in a community which did not 
even know what a college was. "You ask about 
Abby's health," writes Mr. Bliss to his wife's 
mother. "You must know that she is much 
better than when she was in America, for could 
she then take care of a large baby, keep a house, 
and attend to a houseful of company, make 
clothes for her husband, self, and baby, besides 

181 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

fitting dresses for others, and in addition to all 
this carry on a correspondence extensive enough 
to weary out a common mind?" Nor where his j 
labours less diversified. "A missionary in those j 
days had to be a jack-of -all-trades. To the 
ordinary life of preacher and pastor he was |J 
obliged to add the function of a lawyer in case j 
members of his flock were denied their legal J 
rights; he daily acted as school superintendent; 
he had to understand the arts of land purchase, 
building, carpentry; he was indeed often helpless ; 
if he did not know something of medicine. In 
dealing with the government he could hope for i 
little success if he did not know something of 
diplomacy.'' 

The college was devised in 1862. In 1871 
the corner-stone of the main building was laid 
by William E. Dodge, one of its principal found- 
ers, and on that occasion in the following char- 
acteristic utterance Doctor Bliss interpreted its 
spirit: 

This college is for all conditions and classes of men with- \ 
out regard to colour, nationality, race, or religion. A man, 
white, black, or yellow, Christian, Jew, Mohammedan, or 
heathen, may enter and enjoy all the advantages of this 
institution for three, four, or eight years, and go out be- 
lieving in one God, in many gods, or in no god. But it 
will be impossible for any one to continue with us long < 
without knowing what we believe to be the truth and 
our reasons for that belief. 

182 



DANIEL BLISS 

Upon his retirement in 1902 his son, Howard 
Bliss, was elected his successor, and continued 
the work of his father for eighteen years in his 
father's catholic spirit and with his father's 
courage. Then, worn out by the tragic ex- 
periences through which the college passed dur- 
ing the World War, he came home to die. But 
the college lives. Under the administration of the 
father and the son it has grown to a university 
with seven departments; nine hundred students, 
drawn from a territory extending from the Ural 
Mountains to Abyssinia, and from Greece and 
Egypt to Persia; eighty instructors; twenty-six 
buildings of stone, crowning a hill overlooking 
the Bay of Beirut and having 2,860 graduates, 
many of them occupying positions of command- 
ing influence in the various communities from 
which they came and to which they have re- 
turned. They are its epistles known and read 
of all men; and the college itself is an enduring 
monument to the missionary pioneer who had 
the idealism to see, the courage to undertake, and 
the patience to accomplish so great an achieve- 
ment. 



183 



DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY, EVANGELIST 

WITHOUT office in Church or State; 
without theological, collegiate, or even 
high -school education; without a church 
or society behind him to support him or a con- 
stituency, except such as he himself created, to 
afford him moral support; without any of the 
recognized graces of oratory; and without any 
ambition to form a new ecclesiastical organi- 
zation or a new school of theological thought, and 
perhaps without the ability to do so; nevertheless, 
Dwight L. Moody probably spoke to a greater 
number of auditors than any man of his time in 
either Europe or America, unless possibly John 
B. Gough may be an exception, and he spoke on 
spiritual themes to audiences which were less 
prepared therefor by any previous spiritual 
culture than those addressed on such themes by 
any preacher since Wesley and Whitfield. 

More fundamental than the much-discussed 
question. Are the churches losing their power? is 
the question. What is the secret of such power 
as they possess? What is the attraction that 
draws to the churches, with such regularity, so 
many men and women of different stations and 

184 



DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY 

of varying degrees of moral and intellectual 
culture? To markets people go to procure food 
required to support physical life; to dry -goods 
stores, for clothing necessary for comfort; to 
theatres, to forget their toil in an hour of amuse- 
ment; to art galleries and concert rooms, at- 
tracted by aesthetic desires; to schools, that they 
may obtain the results of the experience of the 
past, and so may avoid the blunders of their 
fathers. But why do they go to church? What 
do they expect? What have they a right to 
expect? What must the churches give to them 
if the congregations are not to go away dis- 
appointed? These questions Mr. Moody's char- 
acter and career help at once to emphasize and 
to answer. 

Dwight Lyman Moody was born on Febru- 
ary 5, 1837. His father's death when he was 
four years old left his widowed mother with nine 
children, a mortgaged New England farm, and 
no money. They were so poor that the credi- 
tors, with incredible heartlessness, took from 
the widow everything she possessed, including 
the kindling wood from the wood-pile. All the 
schooling the boy ever had was given to him by 
the average village school, and that average 
never was, and is not now, very high. He never 
became a good speller nor a great reader. At 
seventeen years of age he went to Boston, got a 

185 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

business position through an uncle on condition 
that he would go to church and Sunday-school, 
accepted the condition and loyally fulfilled it, 
was converted and wished to join the Church 
but was kept out for a year because one of the 
deacons did not think he knew enough of the 
essential doctrines; and two years later went to 
Chicago, which furnished a more congenial atmos- 
phere for his energetic spirit. Here he applied 
to a mission for a Sunday-school class, was told 
he could have one if he could get the scholars 
together, and appeared the next Sunday with a 
complete outfit of ragamuffins, "an embryonic 
Falstaffian army." 

His interest in his Sunday work rapidly in- 
creased; his interest in his week-day work as 
rapidly diminished. He was born to be a mis- 
sionary, as Beethoven was to be a musician or 
Millet to be a painter. It is a very common ex- 
perience for business to encroach upon religion; 
in young Moody's case, religion encroached upon 
business. He was a creature of enthusiasm; 
and for making money he had no enthusiasm, 
for teaching ragamuffins a boundless enthusiasm. 
WTien he had saved a thousand dollars, he cut 
loose from the store and gave himself unre- 
servedly to the mission. His thousand dollars 
was soon exhausted; but he was not disturbed. 
When asked what he was doing and how he was 

186 



DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY 

supported, his ready reply was, "I am working 
for God, and he is rich." 

No man can understand Mr, Moody who does 
not appreciatively understand the meaning of 
enthusiasm. He was an enthusiast, as were 
Paul, Luther, Wesley. His whole life might be 
summed up, his whole character portrayed, in 
three phrases from one of Paul's letters: "In 
diligence not slothful; in spirit aflame; serving 
the Lord." To a remarkable degree and in a re- 
markable measure he united a practical judg- 
ment with an enthusiastic spirit, both directed 
by absolute singleness of purpose. 

He possessed, or, to speak more accurately, 
was possessed by, a miraculous energy. I use 
the word ^'miraculous" advisedly. A miracle, as 
that word is used in the New Testament, in- 
dicates a work that excites wonder and is ac- 
cepted as an indication of extraordinary power. 
Mr. Moody's work to the end of his life excited 
the wonder of all who knew him, and the more 
they knew him the greater was the wonder. To 
them his work was a demonstration that he 
possessed a very extraordinary spiritual power. 
He might be defined as a spiritual athlete. Of 
course his energy was not literally tireless, but 
to those who worked with him it seemed so. 
Life is the best interpreter of the Bible. Mr. 
Moody's life interpreted to his friends and co- 

187 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTE^IPORARIES 

workers the meaning of Christ's words to his 
disciples : "I have meat to eat that ye know not 
of." 

With this energj^ and inseparable from it, was 
an adventurous spirit. He was never afraid of 
risks. If he had speculated, he would have made 
or lost great fortunes — perhaps both lost them and 
made them. If he had become a "captain of 
industry," the industry would have been a large 
one and the workers well organized and to a man 
loyal to their captain. The greatness of an under- 
taking always fascinated him. Difficulties in its 
accomplishment never daunted him. The word 
"impossible" was not in his vocabulary. There 
was a curious psychological resemblance between 
Moody and Grant. One was speechful, the other 
taciturn; one was a soldier, the other an evange- 
list. But to both difficulty, opposition, danger 
were a challenge; neither surrendered to a defeat; 
both were inspired with incredible courage by the 
greatness of the service to which they had been 
called. 

Out of his Sunday-school in Chicago grew a 
Congregational church of which he was pastor, 
although he was never ordained to the ministry. 
The Congregational churches habitually use, 
but their principles do not require, ordination, 
nor does their ordination confer any ecclesias- 
tical authority. The Chicago fire destroyed his 

188 



DWIGHT LY^IAN MOODY 

church; at the same time two not particularly 
conspicuous English Nonconformist ministers 
invited him to go to England and begin an 
evangelistic work there, but made no provision 
for the trip. Doctor Goss in his biography of 
Mr. Moody thus narrates the result: 

That first trip will be long remembered for the incred- 
ible manner in which it was undertaken. He set the day 
for his departure, but did not have a cent with which to 
pay his expenses. However, this did not seem to disturb 
him in the least, for he went on with his preparation as if 
he had millions in a vault. There were still but a few 
hours left before the departure of the train, and yet the 
funds were not in sight. The trunks were packed and his 
family waiting. It was about time for someone to turn 
up with money, one would think! And sure enough he 
did! A friend who thought that he would need some 
"after he reached England,'' handed him five hundred dol- 
lars! There have been too many such strange events in 
his life to make it easy to call them mere coincidences. 

The evangelistic mission was successful, al- 
though when Mr. Moody reached England one 
of the two ministers who had invited him was 
dead and the other dangerously ill, so that he 
was left without any point of contact with the 
English except such as he himself could make. 

Quite as noteworthy was his undertaking the 
publication of the " Gospel Hymns." Music had 
for him no special attraction. But he realized 

189 



SILHOUETTES OF IMY CONTEMPORARIES 

its emotional power, and, perceiving that power 
in a young man who led the singing at a religious 
convention, he called on Mr. Sankey to become 
his co-worker in his evangelistic enterprise and 
pledged him a financial support. Pretty soon 
the need of hymn-books that could be scattered 
through the audiences was felt. If they were 
needed, they must be had. He went to a Lon- 
don publisher. The publisher refused; he had 
made the experiment, published a book of revival 
hymns, and the books had been left unsold on 
his hands. He went to another publisher, who 
would publish only in case Mr. Moody would 
assume all the financial risks. Mr. Moody pro- 
posed the venture to Mr. Sankey, and Mr. 
Sankey prudently declined. But the books 
were needed as ammunition for the campaign 
and Mr. Moody was determined to have the 
ammunition. He had no money, but he had 
courage. He assumed the entire financial re- 
sponsibility without knowing where the money 
would come from if the publication proved to be 
a commercial failure. It proved to be a com- 
mercial success; the "Gospel Hymns" sold by 
the million; they made a fortune. For Mr. 
Moody? No! The first profits were given to 
benevolent enterprises; and when the fortune 
waxed great it was by a legally executed instru- 
ment permanently devoted to endowing schools 

190 



D\MGHT LYMAN MOODY 

at Northfield, Massachusetts, organized by him 
for the purpose of giving the higher education 
to pupils of moderate means. 

This artless faith that all money belongs to the 
Lord and that it can be had for the Lord's work 
if one goes about it in the right way to get it, was 
the secret of Mr. Moody's remarkable success as 
a money raiser. He started out one day with 
"the best minister in Edinburgh" to raise money 
for a mission in that city, the minister taking the 
lead and asking from ten to fifteen pounds at 
each call. 

"I saw," said Mr. Moody, "it was going to take all 
winter at that gait, and so (not daring to criticize him) 
when we came to the next house (that of a very grand and 
wealthy woman) I said, 'How much are you going to ask 
her for?' 

"'Oh, perhaps fifty pounds.' 

"I kept still, but when the door opened into the room 
where she was I just pushed ahead and said : 

"'Madam, I have come to ask you for two thousand 
pounds to help build a new mission down at Carrubers 
Close.' 

"She threw up both hands and exclaimed : 'Oh, mercy ! 
Mr. Moody, I cannot possibly give more than one thou- 
sand.' 

"This reply astonished the timid minister so much that 
he almost fainted and when they got outside he said: 
'You'd better go ahead.' And I did! 

The result was that at the end of the day they had raised 
the $100,000. Not long after, Mr. Moody received a note 

191 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

saying, 'Well, Moody, you raised the money but you used 
up the best minister in Scotland, and we had to send him 
off for a three-months' vacation.' " 



This story is matched by one in America. He 
called once on a wealthy man who had made 
the principle of systematic giving a protection 
against excessive generosity; he made it a rule 
never to give more than one hundred dollars 
at a time. Mr. Moody wanted a large amount — 
I believe, ten thousand dollars. "But," said Mr. 

T , "you know my rule, don't you?" "Yes," 

replied Mr. Moody, "but I thought it would save 
your time and mine to give it at once and not 
require a hundred calls." He got the whole 
amount. "Father gave all he had," said his son 
in narrating the incident to me, "and he asked 
the same from other people." 

This miraculous energy, this adventurous 
courage which characterized Mr. Moody were 
born of his spiritual faith — faith in God, faith 
in himself as God's child engaged in doing his 
Father's work, and faith that in ordinary men 
there are somnolent spiritual forces which will 
respond to the call of conscience and aspiration 
if one only knows how to voice the call. The 
engineer builds a bridge in serene confidence that 
he can rely upon the attraction of gravitation, 
though he neither knows what it is nor why it 

192 



DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY 

works as it does. The physician prescribes for 
his patient with the hope that the disordered 
body, despite the disorder, will respond to the 
remedy. As there are laws of the material world 
in which the engineer has faith, as there are laws 
of the body in which the physician has faith, 
so there are laws of the spiritual universe in 
which the evangelist has faith. Like the serene 
faith of the engineer in the laws of nature, like 
the less serene faith of the physician in the laws 
of the body, was Mr. Moody's faith in the laws 
of the spirit, and it was one very important ele- 
ment in his extraordinary personality. 

In 1885 he was conducting some evangelistic 
meetings in London. A young physician of the 
city, who had been confirmed in the Established 
Church but to whom public worship was little 
more than a method of paying proper public 
respect to the Great King, was one day passing 
the hall where Mr. Moody's meetings were being 
held. Impelled by a mild curiosity and having 
a leisure half -hour, he stepped inside to see what 
a "Moody meeting" was like. The hall was 
crowded. Someone on the platform was offer- 
ing a volunteer prayer. It had not the ripened 
beauty of the Episcopal ritual and did not ap- 
peal to the young doctor. The prayer went 
on — and on — and on — and seemed likely never 
to come to an end, and, the curiosity of the doc- 

193 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

tor more than satisfied, he was about to slip out 
as quietly as he had entered, when a sturdy and 
rather plain -looking man occupying a chair in 
the centre of the platform rose and said: "While 
the brother is finishing his prayer we will sing 

hymn number ." The young man stayed. 

This was not only novelty, it was reality. And 
then and there Dr. Wilfred Grenfell received 
the impulse which has made him an apostle of 
spiritual faith not only to the fishermen of 
Labrador but to unnumbered thousands in 
England, Canada, and the United States. 

I was once a witness of a somewhat similar 
illustration of Mr. Moody's personal power, 
though one not so striking and dramatic. Mr. 
Moody was holding, with the cooperation of the 
churches, a series of meetings in Brooklyn. One 
day had been set apart to be observed as a day 
of fasting and prayer. Henry Ward Beecher 
spoke in a quiet, conversational tone and fol- 
lowed with a prayer in the tenderest and most 
spiritual mood. It recalled Christ's prayer at 
the Last Supper. Then there arose just behind 
me a shouting revivalist. He was oratorical, 
waxed louder and louder, grasped the back of the 
pew in which I was sitting and shook it in the 
vehemence of his real or artificial emotion. It 
recalled to me Elijah's scornful address to the 
priests of Baal: "Cry aloud: for he is a god; 

194 



DWIGHT LYIVIAN MOODY 

either he is musing, or he is gone aside, or he is 
in a journey, or perad venture he sleepeth, and 
must be awaked." When at length the orator 
stopped, out of breath with his vociferous de- 
votion, I thought the meeting was destroyed; that 
nothing could bring back to it its devotional 
atmosphere. Mr. Moody rose and said, with 
that strangely quiet and penetrating voice of his : 
"Now let us have three minutes of silent prayer." 
And the silence which he summoned erased the 
disturbing oration and restored the spirit of de- 
votion. 

This penetrating personality of Mr. Moody 
made him a great bearer of a great message. 
What was that message which he believed would 
meet the great but unconscious or half -conscious 
hunger of the souls of men.^ I shall not under- 
take here to analyze this spiritual hunger or to 
describe the elements which enter into it, or all 
the causes which especially and notably excite 
it. It must suffice for my present purpose to 
indicate two elements, neither of which is ever 
wholly wanting from any man who is not him- 
self wholly lacking in some of the elements 
essential to a normal manhood; the first relates 
to his past, the second to his future. 

Eveiy healthful man sometimes — some men 
at all times — looks back regretfully upon his 
past. He is conscious of blunders in judgment, 

195 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

aberrations of will, deliberate acts of wrong- 
doing, which have brought injury upon himself 
and upon others. He wishes that he could live 
again his life, or some particular crisis in his life. 
Sometimes this is a keen sense of shame for some 
specific deed done or duty neglected; sometimes 
a vague feeling of self-condemnation without 
clearly defined specific cause; sometimes a pass- 
ing shadow, evanescent and uninfluential ; some- 
times a morbid self-condemnation, depressing 
the spirits and tending toward despair. He who 
has never felt this sense of remorse in some one 
of its various forms is singularly lacking either 
in his memory, his ideals, or his power of sitting 
in judgment upon his own conduct and character. 
It is doubtful whether any desire which the 
human soul ever possessed is keener or more 
overmastering than the desire sometimes pos- 
sesses us, in certain phases of our experience, 
to be rid of our ineradicable past and to be per- 
mitted to begin life anew, unclogged and un- 
burdened. 

The other spiritual hunger of the soul relates 
to the future. The soul is conscious of unde- 
veloped possibilities in itself; it is spurred on, 
to it knows not what future, by unsatisfied 
aspirations. It longs to do and to be more, and 
rather to be than to do. It suffers what I may 
call "growing pains." It has in the sphere of 

196 



DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY 

moral experience aspirations that may be com- 
pared to those which have summoned the great- 
est musicians and the greatest artists to their 
careers. This sense of unsatisfied aspiration 
differs from the sense of remorse in that it relates 
to the future, not to the past; the one is a con- 
sciousness of wrong committed or duty left un- 
done, the other of life incomplete. The cry of 
the soul in the one experience is that of Paul. 
"Who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death?" The cry of the other is that of Tenny- 
son: 

Oh, for a man to arise in me 

That the man that I am may cease to be. 

The one is a craving for peace, the other for 
achievement. 

It is because the Christian religion is able to 
satisfy these two passionate desires of the human 
soul — the desire for peace and the desire for / 
achievement — that it possesses the attraction 
which the failures and the folly of its adherents 
may diminish but cannot destroy. 

The Church of Christ declares to men that 
God bears no ill-will toward them; that he de- 
sires for them that they shall be good men and 
true; that to accomplish this, his good will 
toward them, Jesus Christ has come for his 
Father and our Father into the world, and that 

197 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

this fact is attested by the joyous experience of 
unnumbered milHons of different eras, creeds, 
and races. At the same time the Church in- 
spires with hope for the future. It tells the 
story of a Man who in himself fulfilled the spir- 
itual desires that are in all noble men, and then, 
departing, left as his legacy the command, which 
is also a promise: "Follow me." It answers 
the question, "What is human nature.'^" by point- 
ing to the character of Jesus of Nazareth, with 
the assurance that, what He was every man can 
become, and it answers the question, "Is life 
worth living.'^" by pointing to that life and de- 
claring that, as He laid down His life for us, so 
can we lay down our lives for one another. 

This is the message of the Christian Church 
reduced to its simplest form; the message of the 
Roman Catholic ecclesiastic and the Protestant 
preacher, of Cardinal Gibbons and General 
William Booth. I think its briefest statement 
in religious literature is that of Isaac Watts: 

But he forgives my follies past 

And gives me strength for days to come. 

I lay down my pen, close my eyes, and lean 
back in my chair, and the scene of my childhood 
is before me — our Sunday-evening service of 
song in my grandfather's home; and I hear again 
the treble voice of my aged aunt, singing in our 

198 



DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY 

closing hymn as her own experience, this con- 
fession of faith which her favourite hymn writer 
had phrased for her. Then the scene disappears 
and her song is taken up by a great chorus, a 
host hke the sands on the seashore for multitude, 
whom no tongue can number and no imagination 
can picture, and in which all lands and all 
generations, the living and the dead, have a part. 

This was Mr. Moody's twofold message — 
forgiveness for the past, strength for the future. 

His theology was very simple. Asked by an 
orthodox Churchman for his creed, he replied: 
"It is already in print and circulation, the fifty- 
third chapter of Isaiah." One verse from that 
chapter suffices for one article of his creed : "All 
we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned 
every one to his own way ; and the Lord hath laid 
on him the iniquity of us all." The other article 
of his creed is comprised in a verse which he often 
quoted and which he always lived: "As many 
as received him, to them gave he power to be- 
come the sons of God, even to them that believe 
on his name." I think his message might all be 
summed up in one sentence: You can leave all 
your past for God to take care of, provided you 
will give yourself unreservedly to him and his 
service for the future. The whole object of his 
ministry, whether he spoke to a thousand from 
the platform or to one in the inquiry meeting, was 

199 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

to bring individuals to self-surrender and self- 
devotion. He was a recruiting oflScer; and he 
neither asked as to the life of the past nor as to the 
opinions entertained or the feelings experienced 
in the present; his one and only question was: 
"Will you devote yourself unto death for the 
future to Christ and his cause?" 

Mr. Moody had none of the arts of the orator. 
He had a carrying voice, and without apparent 
effort on his part could be heard throughout the 
largest halls. He was intense in spirit but quiet 
in method, generally conversational in tone, 
never shouted, rarely was dramatic, never 
theatrical, his gestures simple. One of his co- 
workers reports that once, to emphasize his 
picture of a man refusing to take the medicine 
that would cure him and then blaming the phy- 
sician, "he actually took the tumbler that was 
on the table and dashed the water on the floor." 
But whenever I heard him, and I heard him 
frequently, he depended entirely on the spiritual 
power of his message and his own intense con- 
viction of its truth. I venture to transcribe here 
the impression of his appearance and method on 
the platform as I wrote it at the time of his death : 

As he stood on the platform he looked like a business 
man; he dressed like a business man; he took the meeting 
in hand as a business man would; he spoke in a business 
man's fashion; he had no holy tone; he never introduced a 

200 



DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY 

jest for a jest's sake, but he did not fear to use humour if 
humour would serve his purpose; he never turned a sen- 
tence neatly to catch that applause of the eye which is sub- 
stituted in religious assemblies for applause of the hands; 
and whether they believed in him or not, his auditors were 
always sure that he believed all that he said, and, indeed, 
said less than he believed because no language could ex- 
press fully the experience of his own life. 

His sermons abounded in illustrations but 
they were never used for ornament; were seldom 
taken from either nature or literature; with 
rare exceptions were concrete biographical ac- 
counts borrowed from his rich and varied 
pastoral experience, and used not to enforce a 
theory but always to make vivid a fact. He 
aroused the emotions of his audience, but not 
by an emotional appeal. The notion dissemi- 
nated during his life by his critics that he pic- 
tured hell-fire to excite men's terror and a celes- 
tial heaven to excite their sensual delight was 
absolutely untrue; was the reverse of the truth. 
I think the most terrifying sermon on future 
punishment I ever heard was one on "Son, 
remember." But it was wholly psychological; 
a vivid portrayal of what was here and what 
would be hereafter the anguish of a soul who, 
looking back, could remember only a life of 
wasted opportunities, sensual excesses, selfish 
cruelties. There lies before me, as I write, a 

201 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

volume of "Twelve Selected Sermons," ap- 
parently selected by Mr. Moody himself, pub- 
lished in 1880. One of these sermons is on the 
words "The Gospel." It is his definition of the 
Gospel as he understood it. No condensation 
can adequately interpret its illustrative quality 
and its spiritual power, but a few lines may 
suflSce to indicate to the thoughtful reader the 
essential nature of his simple message. He says : 

I like the Gospel because it has been for me the very 
best news I have ever heard. It has taken out of my path 
four of the bitterest enemies I ever had. 

It has taken away the fear of death. The Conquerer 
bursts the bands of death and shouts: "Because I live ye 
shall live also." 

It takes away the burden of sin. It tells me: "As far as 
the East is from the West so far has he removed our trans- 
gressions from us." 

It takes away the fear of judgment. Christ declares : 
"He that belie veth on Him that sent me is passed from 
death unto life." 

It takes away bondage to sin and gives me the spirit of 
liberty. Do I speak to a man who is a slave to strong 
drink? Christ can give you strength to hurl the cup from 
you and make you a sober man, a loving husband, a kind 
father. 

It is a free Gospel. This Good News I am bid to pro- 
claim to "every creature." 

In an important respect the spirit of this ser- 
mon characterized all Mr. Moody's preaching. 

202 



DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY 

His sermons were never expositions of a theo- 
logical theory; they were always interpretations 
of a present experience. In this sermon he says 
nothiRg about a future punishment from which 
the sinner is saved by the Gospel. He believed 
and habitually preached a hell on earth and a 
heaven on earth. Lost and saved were with 
him present facts. To live without God and 
without the glorious life that companionship 
with God inspires is to be lost, to live in that 
companionship and inspired by that hope and 
love is to be saved. That there is an eternal 
lost which lies in the future of the one condition 
and an eternal saved which lies in the future of 
the other condition was implied in his teaching, 
but this was not the truth on which he laid chief 
emphasis. I once studied with care a published 
volume of his sermons to endeavour to get the 
secret of his power. The examination confirmed 
his own summary of his preaching: "I used to 
think," he says in one of his sermons, "of God 
as a stern judge on the throne, from whose wrath 
Jesus Christ had saved me. It seems to me now 
I could not have a falser idea of God than that. 
Since I have become a father, I have made this 
discovery : That it takes more love and sacrifice 
for the father to give up the son than it does for 
the son to die." 

His method of preparation for his sermons was 

203 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

unique. He had no background of material for 
preaching prepared by a course of school, college, 
and professional education. So he prepared his 
own background by a method of his own creation. 
He had a number of large manilla envelopes 
labelled topically to suit the method of his 
own thinking, such as Repentance, Grace, Love, 
and the like. Into these envelopes he put all 
sorts of material — sometimes his own thoughts, 
sometimes a copy of something he had read, 
sometimes clippings from a newspaper or a peri- 
odical. When an envelope was full, he would 
open a new one. In time he accumulated five 
or six hundred of these envelopes, often two or 
more on the same topic. These constituted his 
pulpit material — ^his library, so to speak — and 
from them he prepared his sermons, generally in 
vacation. These sermons were mere notes, writ- 
ten in a very large hand, not more than three or 
four words on a line. They were usually filed 
in his Bible, kept in place by a rubber band, 
generally at the text he had chosen. These notes 
he took to the pulpit or platform with him, but 
he never read his sermons; he used the notes 
merely as memoranda. 

He never "got up" a revival. He was gene- 
rally invited to a church, or to a town or city, by 
a cooperation of churches, and to the committee 
spontaneously organized by the church or the 

204 



DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY 

combination of churches he left all preliminary 
arrangements. Nor did he ordinarily make any 
effort at the close of his mission to organize its 
results. The work of preparing the ground and 
the work of gathering in the harvest he left to 
others. But his preaching was almost invari- 
ably accompanied by inquiry meetings, and 
these were always carried on under his immedi- 
ate supervision. He himself selected his co- 
workers. Partly by temperament and partly 
by long experience, he had acquired an intuitive 
judgment of spiritual character. His super- 
vision of these meetings extended to the mi- 
nutest details, such as a draught from an open 
window or a buzzing gas jet. 

He had an enormous correspondence, many 
of the letters asking counsel on ethical or spirit- 
ual or perhaps theological problems. Writing 
was always a great physical effort for him and 
he never learned to use a typewriter. Mr. 
Paul Moody, to whom I am indebted for some 
of these incidents, has given me an interesting 
picture of his management of this phase of his 
ever-growing work : 

He handled his correspondence at home, which was the 
only place where I saw it. It was very interesting. He 
entertained more or less. There were usually people stop- 
ping at the house, and he would sit at the desk opening his 
letters, glancing at them, and then would throw them 

205 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

across the room to some member of the family with the 
direction: "Answer that." Sometimes it was a diflScult 
letter which demanded quite a little thought, and if you 
brought it to him and asked him what he wanted to say 
he always replied by saying: "I do not intend to buy a 
dog and then do the barking myself. If I were going to 
answer it I would, but I want you to answer it." Very 
seldom would he take a letter back. Once in a while an 
unknown person made a confession a matter of the soul, 
and that I refused to handle. My mother did a great deal 
of his correspondence. My mother was the buffer between 
himself and the world. She was the "shock absorber." 
She stood between him and things. 

Mr. Moody did not have that broad intel- 
lectual outlook which scholarship sometimes, 
but not always, gives to the scholar. But he had 
that broad human outlook which almost in- 
variably characterizes the man who possesses 
both a living spiritual faith and catholic human 
sympathies, who estimates men not by the ac- 
cidents of their creed, their race, or their social 
culture, but by their character, and can there- 
fore recognize real spiritual worth in men of 
differing theological opinions. This catholicity 
of spirit led him to welcome the cooperation in 
his evangelistic labours of men whose intellectual 
outlook was very different from his own, and 
made him indifferent to theological theories 
which men of less catholic temper regarded of 
vital importance. 

206 



DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY 

In the book of " Selected Sermons," from which 
I have already quoted, are two on "The Blood." 
In these sermons IMr. Moody lays great emphasis 
on the passion and death of Jesus Christ as at 
once a fruit and a proof of God's forgiving love, 
but it would not be easy for any theologian to 
deduce from them which one of the conflicting 
theological theories of the atonement he held. 
He accepted the Bible as an infallible rule of 
faith and practice; but he habitually used it as 
the Epistle to Timothy affirms it should be used 
— for reproof, correction, and instruction in 
righteousness. I do not think that he ever dis- 
cussed the supposed bearing of the Bible on such 
questions as the age of the world and the proc- 
esses of creation. It was wholly as a book of 
i^ spiritual experiences that he used it, and its 
adaptation to that use was for him an adequate 
verification of its authority. In the little booklet 
on the use of the Bible which he published I do 
not find any discussion concerning the nature of 
inspiration. His question to George Adam 
Smith: "Why do you make such a fuss about 
two Isaiahs when most people do not know that 
there is one.^" indicates his comparative indiffer- 
ence to the so-called "Higher Criticism." And 
the fact that certainly with his consent, if not at 
his request, I gave in the eighties a course of 
winter lectures on the Bible at the two North- 

207 



\ 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEIVIPORARIES 

field Schools, crossing the Connecticut River 
on the ice with the thermometer ten degrees or 
more below zero, indicates his entire readiness to 
welcome for his pupils any light on the Bible 
provided it came from one who was seeking to 
find in it for himself and others inspiration for 
the Christian life. 

Another incident in which I participated 
showed how little sympathy he had with the 
heresy hunters. At the time of the World's 
Fair in Chicago an arrangement was made for 
the cooperation of the Evangelical churches in 
their Sunday services under the direction of 
Mr. Moody. An invitation to preach on my 
visit to the Fair I declined, because I was un- 
willing even to seem to interfere with this co- 
operative movement. The invitation was then 
renewed through Mr. Moody, and I preached, 
not in the Evangelistic service, where I might 
have been a misfit, but in the Congregational 
Church to a congregation which filled all the 
pews and sat on the floor in the aisles. The 
notion somewhat widely circulated that Mr. 
Moody was narrow-minded, and in his methods 
mechanical, was due probably less to the malice 
of enemies than to the ignorance of the public 
misled by the folly of some of his defenders. He 
habitually refused to defend himself. 

A more striking illustration of this breadth of 

208 



DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY 

spiritual sympathy is afforded by two incidents 
narrated by Mr. Paul Moody: 

Mr. McKay, who went with us through Palestine, was 
converted late in life, when he was middle-aged; for 
a few years was a Protestant, then became a Christian 
Scientist, and finally went over to Catholicism. His one 
desire was to get my father to come over also. He 
arranged a meeting between Archbishop Corrigan and 
my father. They had a conference, and it is said that they 
prayed together. After this meeting with the Bishop in 
Chicago I had a number of Catholics tell me that they 
always felt that he was going to come over to the Church 
because he was so sympathetic with them. Later he gave 
a substantial donation to the Catholic Church in Northfield 
and also an organ, and the dear old pin-head people at- 
tacked him in print and otherwise. For years afterward 
he received letters saying, particularly those from England, 
that he had been fellowshipping anti-Christ and they con- 
signed him to the outermost hell. He chuckled over these. 
When we rebuilt our Congregational Church in Northfield, 
the Catholics in the town turned in and hauled all the 
stones free of charge as their contribution. 

Mr. Moody was too catholic ever to become 
a member of the Catholic Church. But his 
fellowship with the priests of that Church ought 
not to surprise us. For the message of this 
unordained preacher in the newest of the Protes- 
tant churches and the message of the Apostoli- 
cally ordained archbishop in the oldest Church 
in Christendom was the same: Divine for- 

209 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

giveness for the past and divine strength for the 
future. 

I say nothing in this paper about Mr. Moody's 
estabhshment of the Northfield Schools, though 
that is in some respects the greatest piece of work 
he ever did. But here I am sketching Mr. Moody 
the EvangeHst. The work of an cvangeHst he 
always regarded as the greatest of all forms of ser- 
vice, the work of the ministry as a cramping and 
confining occupation. He urged his son not to 
go into the ministry but to become an evangelist. 
He had a great admiration for Phillips Brooks 
and was always sorry for him because he could not 
be an evangelist. He had a great affection for 
Anson Phelps Stokes and Henry Sloan Coffin, 
and wanted them not to go into the pastorate 
but to prepare themselves for an evangelistic 
ministry. He made a vigorous endeavour to per- 
suade Henry Ward Beecher to leave his church, 
at least for a season, and join him in an evange- 
listic mission. He was not interested in teaching 
a system of theology; he was interested in induc- 
ing men to accept God's gift of a divine life. 

Mr. Moody died in 1889. The radical changes 
in theological thought which had begun before 
his death have continued since. They will 
always continue. Theology, if it is a living 
thought, will be, must be, a progressive thought. 
But religion, the life of God in the soul of man, 

210 



DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY 

the life of faith and hope and love, the life of 
doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly 
with God, the life of accepting his forgiveness for 
the past and of devoting ourselves in joyous self- 
sacrifice to his service in the future, remains to- 
day what it was when Abraham obeyed the voice 
of God and went out not knowing whither he 
went. For myself, I believe neither in the 
authority of the ecclesiastical organization with 
the Church-man, nor in the infallibility of the 
Book with Mr. Moody. The authority to pro- 
nounce absolution and remission for the sins that 
are past and to proffer this gift of life to fulfil 
the aspirations of the soul for the future, I be- 
lieve to be spiritual, not ecclesiastical nor tradi- 
tional, and to belong equally to every one who 
has received such absolution and remission and 
such gift of spiritual life. But I am sure that 
if we of the so-called liberal faith hope to retain 
in these more liberal days the attractive power 
of the Church, we can do it only by holding fast 
to the great spiritual fact that in the God whom 
Jesus' has declared to us there is abundant for- \ 
giveness for all the past, and an abundant life 
for all the future; and this we must affirm not 
as a theological opinion, to be defended by philo- 
sophical arguments as a rational hj-j^othesis, 
but as an assured fact, historically certified by 
the life and death of Jesus Christ and confirmed 

211 



\ 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

out of the mouth of many witnesses by the ex- 
perience of Christ's disciples and followers in all 
churches and in every age. If we fail to do this, 
men wdll desert our ministry for Romanism, 
Anglicanism, or the old orthodoxy, or, in despair 
of spiritual life in any quarter, will desert all 
that ministers to the higher life and live a wholly 
material life, alternating between restless, un- 
satisfied desire and stolid self -content. And the 
fault and the folly will be ours more even than 
theirs. 



212 



HENRY WARD BEECHER, 
PROPHET OF THE LOVE OF GOD 

IT IS difficult to realize the condition in which 
the old Puritanism had left the churches of 
New England at the close of the eighteenth 
century. There were no missionary societies, 
home or foreign; no Young Men's or Young 
Women's Christian Associations; no anti-slavery, 
temperance, or other reform societies. Yale 
College had only four professing Christians in its 
student body and had two Tom Paine societies. 
Many causes have combined to overthrow the 
theological system which produced this moral 
and spiritual decadence. Chief among them 
were four Puritan divines leading without con- 
scious cooperation a revolt against it: William 
Ellery Channing, who taught the essential good- 
ness of man and interpreted sin as a curable dis- 
ease; Charles G. Finney, who taught that man 
was a free moral agent, and therefore ought to 
repent of his sins; Horace Bushnell, who applied 
the doctrine of development to religion and 
taught that sin is not natural but unnatural; and 
Henry W^ard Beecher, who taught that God 
treats men, not collectively as a king treats the 

213 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

community, but individually as a father treats 
his children. The difference between the old and 
the new, the Puritanism of the eighteenth cen- 
tury and the Puritanism of the twentieth cen- 
tury, is a difference between a religion of law and 
a religion of freedom — a religion that is artificial 
and calls itself supernatural and a religion that 
is natural because it is life, a religion which with 
Lyman Beecher repudiates "nateral virtoos" 
and a religion which with Sabatier declares that 
man is incurably religious. In the promotion 
of this spiritual revolution no one exercised a 
more profound influence than Henry Ward 
Beecher. 

He was singularly equipped for the mission 
which was given to him. Professor Fowler, a 
famous phrenologist of that time, correctly 
called him "a splendid animal." He was not 
an athlete; when I knew him, he neither fished 
nor hunted, nor took long tramps, nor rode 
horseback for exercise; his chief, if not his only, 
outdoor game was croquet. I asked him once 
to give me an article on how to keep well. 
"There are but three rules," he replied: "Eat 
well, sleep well, and laugh well." I wonder if he 
got them from Robert Burton, the author of 
"The Anatomy of Melancholy," who is reported 
by one of his admirers as saying: "There are 
only three doctors to be really trusted — Doctor 

214 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

Merryman, Doctor Diet, and Doctor Quiet." 
They were Mr. Beecher's doctors, and he followed 
their directions habitually and conscientiously. 

He not only slept well, he scrupulously main- 
tained periods of rest. He had, says his inti- 
mate friend, Rossiter W. Raymond, "three dis- 
tinct mental states — the passive or resting, the 
receptive and inquiring or filling up, and the 
spontaneously active or giving forth state." 
That he was so full of superfluous energy in the 
giving out state was largely due to his con- 
scientious maintenance of hours for resting as 
well as for receiving. "In the resting state 
he loved to be alone with birds or flowers or 
precious stones or pictures — things that asked no 
questions and called for no active reciprocities." 

He was full-blooded; for that reason eschewed 
the red meat. A rich arterial system may not 
cause an emotional nature, but generally accom- 
panies one that, like Mr. Beecher's, is both emo- 
tional and demonstrative. His religion was not a 
theology, it was the spontaneous outflow of his 
whole being. His beliefs rested not upon argu- 
ment but upon experience. He has given a char- 
acteristic description of "that blessed morning of 
May when it pleased God to reveal to my wander- 
ing soul that it was His nature to love a man in his 
sins for the sake of helping him out of them ; . . . 
that He was a Being not made mad by sin, but 

215 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

sorry; that He was not furious with wrath 
toward the sinner, but pitied him — in short, that 
He felt toward me as my mother felt toward me, 
to whose eyes my wrong-doing brought tears, 
who never pressed me so close to her as when I 
had done wrong, and who would fain with her 
yearning love lift me out of trouble." From 
that day to his death his faith was in a human 
God, a Spirit interpreted to us through our own 
spirits, and in Jesus Christ as the personifica- 
tion in human history of this invisible Spirit. 
Criticized for preaching in Theodore Parker's 
pulpit, he replied: "Could Theodore Parker 
worship my God.^* — Christ Jesus is his name. 
All that there is of God to me is bound up in that 
name. A dim and shadowy effluence rises from 
Christ, and that I am taught to call the Father. 
A yet more tenuous and invisible film of thought 
arises, and that is the Holy Spirit. . . . 
But Christ stands my manifest God. All I know 
is of him and in him." 

This combination of an emotional nature and 
faith in an Incarnate divinity on whom he could 
freely bestow it endowed him with a passionate 
piety. Its nature will be best interpreted by two 
incidents in his life. 

In 1877 he preached a sermon which was 
subsequently published in the Christian Union* 

*Chnstian Union, Vol. XVI, No. 26, p. 582 (December 26, 1877). 

216 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

I believe, though I am not sure, for he never told 
me, that it was called forth by a visit made the 
day before upon a mother whose son had died 
without any evidence of evangelical conversion, 
and who was almost crazed by the belief that he 
had been consigned to hell. This sermon con- 
tained the following paragraph : 

If now you tell me that this great mass of men, because 
they had not the knowledge of God, went to heaven, I say 
that the inroad of such a vast amount of mud swept into 
heaven would be destructive of its purity; and I cannot 
accept that view. If, on the other hand, you say that they 
went to hell, then you make an infidel of me; for I do swear, 
by the Lord Jesus Christ, by his groans, by his tears, and 
by the wounds in his hands and in his side, that I will never 
let go of the truth that the nature of God is to suffer for 
others rather than to make them suffer. If I lose every- 
thing else, I will stand on the sovereign idea that God so 
loved the world that he gave his own son to die for it rather 
than it should die. Tell me that back of Christ there is a 
God who for unnumbered centuries has gone on creating 
men and sweeping them like dead flies — nay, like living 
ones — into hell, is to ask me to worship a being as much 
worse than the conception of any mediaeval devil as can 
be imagined; but I will not worship the devil, though he 
should come dressed in royal robes and sit on the throne 
of Jehovah. 

For this sermon he was bitterly attacked by 
theological critics. He was "a Universalist," 
"a heretic," "irreverent," "a blasphemer." 

217 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

Talking with me afterward, he said: "When 
I read the horrible caricatures of my God by 
ministers of the Church in some of their sermons, 
I understand how the Hebrew prophets felt 
toward the pagan religions. I can't stand it; 
something has to give way." Of course at this 
distance of time I cannot vouch for the verbal 
accuracy of my report; but the phrase "some- 
thing has to give way" has remained in my 
memory ever since. Irreverent? It was the 
passionate reverence of a son that broke over all 
restraints in his flaming indignation at the pagan 
misrepresentations of his Father. 

The other incident was radically different, 
but it none the less indicates Mr. Beecher's for- 
getfulness of self and emotional absorption in 
his Master at times when one might at least an- 
ticipate a divided interest. 

In the summer of 1874 an investigation on 
behalf of Plymouth Church of certain charges 
against Mr. Beecher's moral character was con- 
ducted by a special committee of six gentle- 
men of the highest character and some of them 
of national reputation. They presented on 
August 28th their report, which was wholly 
favourable to Mr. Beecher's Christian character 
and integrity. When Mr. Beecher returned at 
the close of his summer vacation, expecting 
to meet his people in the usual Friday even- 

218 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

ing prayer-meeting, he found assembled a 
throng which the lecture-room could not con- 
tain, and which therefore by a kind of spontan- 
eous movement had adjourned into the church 
audience room. Mr. Beecher at first insisted 
that the meeting should be held, as usual, in 
the lecture-room, but finally, convinced that the 
lecture-room would not contain one half of those 
present, he reluctantly consented to the transfer 
which had been made. When he entered the 
crowded church, he was greeted with demonstra- 
tions of enthusiastic attachment by his people, and 
an extemporized choir sang an anthem, the words 
of which, if I ever knew them, I have forgotten. 
When the choir began this anthem, Mr. Beecher 
retreated from the platform and did not return 
until the anthem was concluded. Then, re- 
suming his seat upon the platform which con- 
stitutes the pulpit in Plymouth Church, he said 
in a quiet voice full of suppressed emotion some- 
thing like this : "We have not come here to look 
or to be looked at. We have come to worship 
Him whose name is above every name," and 
then, taking his hymn-book in his hand, read 
the hymn: 

When I survey the wonderous cross. 
On which the Prince of Glory died, 

My richest gain I count but loss, 

And pour contempt on all my pride. 

219 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

This hymn he made his own expression of con- 
secration to the crucified Christ, and when he 
had finished, the assemblage was converted from 
an audience of hero-worshippers to a congregation 
of Christ-worshippers. A more startling illus- 
tration of the power of a great soul inspired by 
a clear vision and a divine passion I have never 
witnessed. 

Someone has defined genius as "a capacity 
for hard work." That is exactly what it is not. 
I do not venture to define genius, but I am very 
certain that in all geniuses there is one common 
quality: spontaneity. Most of us are like a 
pump — we must work to bring our thoughts to 
the surface. But there are occasional men who 
are like a bubbling spring — the ideas rise to the 
surface spontaneously, and if there is no one to 
catch them they flow off and are lost. This 
quality of spontaneity is charactistic of every 
man of genius. Whether he is orator, poet, 
artist, novelist, or musician, the truth he utters, 
the picture he paints, the story he tells, the 
music he writes seems to him to be given to him. 
It comes to him unsought. He may spend much 
time in polishing the diamond; but he does not 
make the diamond. If he is an executive an 
inward voice seems to counsel his action and he 
cannot always explain to others the reason for 
his course. This spontaneity was very distinctly 

220 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

characteristic of INIr. Beecher. The fact is very 
clearly indicated by what he once told me of his 
method of pulpit preparation. 

"I always have," he said, "floating in my head 
half-formed thoughts I would like to utter. 
Saturday is my day of rest. I am apt to spend 
it on my farm at Peekskill under the trees. I 
sleep soundly Saturday night; I sleep vicariously 
for my congregation. After breakfast I go into 
my study, feel of my different themes, the one 
that is ripe I pluck, select my text, organize my 
thought, and go into the pulpit with my theme 
fresh, my mind and heart full of it." In his 
earlier ministry he would write and read parts 
of his sermon and extemporize parts. In his 
later ministry his notes were mere hints. These 
were sometimes so fragmentary as to be meaning- 
less to any one but himself, but sometimes these 
rough fragments were as thought-provoking as 
if he had wrought them with care. There lie 
before me as I write the manuscript notes of 
one of his sermons, so rough that I cannot 
determine the proper order of the sheets or 
find either text or indication of peroration. 
But there are two hints worth preserving as 
epigrams : 

I. Consider your Past a Treasury. What has been 
laid up in it.'' 

III. What are called Repentances, Reformations, are 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

New Growths or New Leaves; do not change old evils — 
hilt overlay with new growths. 



Sometimes his mind would refuse to work and 
he had to make the sermon. Then was he least 
successful. Sometimes a hint, an intellectual 
jar, would wake him up; then he was often at 
his best. "I remember," says Doctor Raymond, 
"that at one of his last public appearances — the 
dinner of the Polytechnic Alumni, in Brooklyn — 
he whispered to me as I passed behind his chair, 
T can't say anything to-night; I am perfectly 
empty.' 'Never mind,' I replied; 'the boys are 
glad to see you. Thank them for their greeting, 
anyhow, and sit down again, if you like.' But 
by the time he was called upon, after several had 
spoken, he had found enough to say; and the 
mingled humour and eloquence of his address 
that night will not soon be forgotten." 

I do not recommend young ministers to adopt 
Mr. Beecher's methods. Imitation never yet 
made an original thinker. We are sometimes 
exhorted to follow in Christ's footsteps. But 
we cannot do it. We must follow him as the 
bird follows its leader, making its own path 
through the air. But I am quite sure that Mr. 
Beecher's principles are well worth careful study 
by all men engaged in creative work. We all 
recognize the necessity of the two periods — the 

223 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

giving out and the filling up. But not many recog- 
nize the equal necessity for the resting period. 
Physical rest is the period of physical digestion 
when the food we have taken becomes flesh and 
blood. Intellectual rest is equally necessary for 
intellectual digestion, when we transform thought 
into experience ; without it the preacher or author 
is simply a reporter of other men's thoughts. 
I am not a psychologist; but I am inclined to 
think that unconscious cerebration is not the 
least valuable part of our intellectual activity. 

Whether true as a general principle or not I 
am sure that his conscientious observance of rest 
periods was one secret of Mr. Beecher's orator- 
ical power. Rarely was he a reporter of other 
men's thoughts. He preached, not theories, but 
experiences. I called on him once with a young 
man who was preparing for the ministry. "I 
am studying theology," said the student, "at 

Theological Seminary." "No objection to 

that," said Mr. Beecher, "if you don't believe 
it." 

Mr. Beecher was a pragmatist without know- 
ing it; I doubt whether the term was invented 
then. But he tested all theological theories by 
the question: Does it work well.^^ "Calvinism," 
he said to me, "is like a churn: it turns out a little 
very good butter, but it wastes a lot of butter- 
milk." He took his theories wherever he found 

223 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

them, quite careless where they came from. 
For example, his theory of the divinity of Christ 
he took from Swedenborg — the divine spirit in 
a human body. Evolution he accepted because 
of its religious value; it threw light on prob- 
lems which had perplexed the Christian Church 
and which the current theology left in darkness. 
It was said of him that he was no theologian. It 
was true. His religious teaching could be reduced 
to philosophic forms, but he was not interested to 
reduce it. Asked once for his theology, he re- 
plied: "Ask Abbott; he knows." Only late in 
life, and then to correct misunderstandings 
among his own brother ministers, did he even 
attempt to formulate his theological beliefs. 
For his preaching was not a product of his 
theology. His preaching was always an endeav- 
our to meet human needs. "I never in my life," 
he once said, "shot an arrow at a venture. I 
have always aimed at a mark, though I have 
very often aimed at one bird and brought down 
another." His theology was always subject to 
correction; it was tested and corrected by life. 
Was Mr. Beecher a scholar? The answer de- 
pends upon the meaning attached to that some- 
what ambiguous word. But if George Crabb is 
right, if to study means to desire eagerly to learn, 
Mr. Beecher was a student. One more eager to 
learn I never knew. The learning which in- 

224 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

terested him was that which could be directly 
applied in practical life. If he had been a 
scientist, he would have been a student not of 
pure science but of applied science — an Edison, 
not an Einstein. 

As a student he had extraordinary facility in 
the use of books. "One does not read a book 
through," he once said to me. "You read a 
book as you eat a fish: cut off the tail, cut off the 
head, cut off the fins, take out the backbone, and 
there is a little meat left which you eat because 
it nourishes you." He made constant and 
systematic use of phrenology, chiefly as a con- 
venient system for the classification of mental 
and moral phenomena. I took over to him one 
day a new volume in philosophy based on that 
system. I wanted to get his estimate upon it. 
He took the book with him to the dinner table 
and read while he ate, turning over the leaves 
with remarks such as: "Nonsense! . . . 
Of course. . . . Everybody knows that. . . . 
Borrowed from Spurzheim. . . . That's 
new and well worth thinking about." At 
the end of the meal he had finished the book 
and handed it back to me with a ten-minute 
comment which made the basis of my editorial 
review. 

But his use of books was not always like that. 
He habitually used the Greek, his favourite com- 

225 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

mentary being Alford's Greek Testament, which 
I still think is, for the practical use of the 
preacher, the best commentary we have on the 
New Testament, better than either Meyer or "The 
International." He studied Curtis's "History 
of the Constitution," and his loyalty to that doc- 
ument, because "there is health in it," set him 
apart from the Abolitionists, whose leader, Wil- 
liam Lloyd Garrison, pronounced it "a covenant 
with death and an agreement with hell." His 
democratic principles were grounded on a careful 
study of fundamental authorities such as De 
Tocqueville and Francis Lieber, with both of 
whom he was familiar. I do not think he used 
the Hebrew language; but if he wanted to get 
at the exact meaning of an Old Testament text 
he went to his friend Doctor Conant, a well-known 
Hebrew scholar, who lived only a few blocks 
away. So he went to his brother, Edward 
Beecher, for information on scholastic theology 
when he wanted such information, and to his 
friend Rossiter W. Raymond for information 
respecting the scientific aspects of evolution. 
But he studied the writings of Darwin, Spencer, 
Tyndall, and Huxley, and it was partly as the 
result of his influence that the republication of 
their writings in this country was brought about. 
In his recreative reading he was more systematic 
than most of us are. I think that he read 

226 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

modern novels and current magazines but little. 
Instead he laid out early in the year three or four 
series of authors — for example: for fiction, George 
Eliot; for poetry, Tennyson; for history, Green; 
for essays, Milton; for drama, the Greek tragedies 
in translation — and then read as the mood in- 
vited him. As a result, at the end of the season 
he had made a real acquaintance of some worth- 
wliile authors. 

His habit of getting knowledge from all sorts 
of experts, in all sorts of places, is too well known 
to need exposition here. A striking but not 
singular illustration is afforded by his getting 
acquainted with a professional gambler, in the 
early years of his ministry, in Indianapolis, and 
using his information so effectively in a graphic 
picture of the methods of the fraternity that a 
young man, thinking to crack a joke at the ex- 
pense of the preacher, asked him: "Mr. Beecher, 
how could you describe a gambling-hell so ac- 
curately if you had never been in one?" and got 
for reply: "How could you know it was accurate 
if you had never been in one?" 

The impression that Mr. Beecher was not a 
scholar was partly due to a habit both natural 
and deliberately cultivated : he studied his theme 
until he believed he had made himself master of 
it, then in public speech he gave himself to the 
exposition, illustration, and enforcement of what 

227 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

he believed to be the truth with absolute in- 
tellectual, imaginative, and emotional abandon. 
He gave weeks to the careful study of the issues, 
personal and political, involved in the Blaine- 
Cleveland campaign; but when his mind was 
made up, he took the stump for Cleveland, 
without reserve, qualification, or limitation. 

He was a friend of man, and most of all a 
friend to men who needed him and whom he 
thought he could serve. He was curiously un- 
suspicious, always saw the good in men, and 
sometimes imagined it when it did not exist. 
He obeyed too literally and with some disastrous 
consequences the saying: "Love thinketh no 
evil." He had many devoted friends who would 
gladly have laid down their lives for him; but, 
like all men of genius, he was at times a lonely 
man. He had a tinge of melancholy, such as, 
I suspect, all idealists have at times, who in- 
stinctively contrast their aspirations with the 
realities of life. He generally kept this melan- 
choly to himself, though sometimes one felt it 
in his public speech, and even more in his 
prayers. He gave me a glimpse of it once. 
"My father," he said, "wrote his sermons with 
the angel of hope looking over his shoulder and 
inspiring his pen. I have never expected to 
succeed. Success has come to me always as a 
surprise." 

228 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

He began life as an individualist, and while in 
the West conducted with great effectiveness 
some revivals of religion in the old-fashioned 
method. He brought with him to the East the 
spirit of eagerness for immediate personal re- 
sults, and some remarkable revivals of religion 
followed his preaching. But his point of view 
gradually changed. After the Civil War Mr. 
Moody once urged him to leave his pulpit, at 
least for a time, and join him in an evangelical 
mission. In speaking to me about this invi- 
tation afterward he expressed in the warmest 
terms his affection and admiration for Mr. 
Moody, but added: "We could not work to- 
gether. For Mr. Moody thinks this is a lost 
world, and he is trying to save as many as pos- 
sible from the wreck; I think Jesus Christ has 
come to save the world, and I am trying to help 
him save it." Wlien he definitely adopted this 
theory I do not know, but I am quite sure that he 
acted on it long before he consciously adopted it. 

It was this principle that made him a re- 
former. When he was criticized for preaching 
politics and told that he ought to confine him- 
self to the Gospel, his answer was: "I hold that 
it is a Christian minister's duty not only to 
preach the Gospel of the New Testament with- 
out reservation, but to apply its truths to any 
question that relates to the welfare of men." 

229 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

TMioever acts on that principle will always be 
ahead of his age, because Jesus Christ is ahead of 
all ages; the world has not yet caught up with 
Christ. It made Henry Ward Beecher an anti- 
slavery preacher in Indianapolis before he came 
to Brooklyn in 1847; and in Indiana, when I was 
there during the Civil War, abolition was more 
bitterly and more widely abhorred than slavery. 
It made him a temperance advocate when drink- 
ing habits were still common and prohibition 
was unknown. It made him heartily indorse 
Gavazzi and Kossuth in their unsuccessful at- 
tempts for the liberation of Italy and Hungary. 
It made him an advocate of woman suffrage; 
he believed in the equality of the sexes, and he 
contended that equality in character involved 
equality in political power. It gave him an in- 
spired courage in his unplanned mission to 
England in 1863, and inspired his appeal to the 
conscience of the plain people of England in five 
ever-memorable addresses, which did so much 
to defeat the endeavours of the aristocracy to 
lend England's moral support to the Southern 
Confederacy. 

Mr. John R. Howard has edited with an ad- 
mirable introduction a volume of Mr. Beecher's 
"Patriotic Addresses." The reader of this vol- 
ume will find in them two characteristics. They 
are not merely political; they do not discuss 

230 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

merely questions of economic expediency or 
political policy. Always by their essential 
spirit, though not always in express terms, they 
consider the relation of the subjects discussed to 
the kingdom of God. And they are generally, I 
think always, free from the bitterness of in- 
vective which so often marred the addresses of 
both the temperance and the anti-slavery re- 
formers of that period. In one of these ad- 
dresses Mr. Beecher says: "I have not meant 
to be severe. If I should meet a slaveholder in 
conversation, I should say just the same. He 
might reply: 'I don't believe all you do, but you 
say what you think, and I like you; you are no 
doughface.'" What Mr. Beecher imagined a 
slaveholder saying I heard one say. He was 
with me in a pew in Plymouth Church when Mr. 
Beecher pictured in his sermon a slave escaping 
from his chains, crossing the Ohio River, and 
finding in Ohio the Fugitive Slave Law waiting 
to catch him there. "Has he a right to flee?" 
cried Mr. Beecher. "Shall I help to turn him 
back to slavery again .^^ If he were my son and 
did not seek liberty, I would write across his 
name, 'Disowned.'" And the slaveholder sit- 
ting at my side as we w^ent out from the church 
said to me, "I cannot agree with all your preacher 
said, but he is a great and good man." 

In his "Yale Lectures on Preaching" he said 

231 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

to the students: "Never preach two sermons 
ahke if you can help it." He rarely did. But 
he always expressed himself. His sermon was 
always an echo of his own experience, and was 
recognized by his congregation to be an inter- 
pretation of his own life. The sermon might be 
a Biblical exposition, or a devotional meditation, 
or a philosophical essay, or a chapter in ethics, 
but, whatever it might be in form, in its spirit it 
was always true to himself. And this inimitable 
spirit of life was the secret of his power as a man, 
not merely as a preacher. His life illustrated 
his saying, "You cannot pray cream and live 
skim milk." 

For Mr. Beecher preached as he lived and lived 
as he preached. The faith that gave power to 
his sermons controlled him in his life, and because 
it controlled him in his life, gave power to 
his preaching. His faith in his fellowmen was 
latent but always ready to be called into ac- 
tion. In his travels he once came to a junc- 
tion where all the passengers had to change cars. 
The passengers, with characteristic eagerness 
to get good seats in the new train, were pushing 
forward each one for himself. Among them was 
a woman rather poorly dressed, with three little 
children and several bags, parcels, and wraps, 
who waited timidly her chance. Mr. Beecher, 
grasping the hand rail on each side of the car and 

232 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

blocking up all entrance by his somewhat burly 
presence, called out: "Isn't any gentleman going 
to help this lady in?" Instantly the mind of the 
crowd was changed. Two gentlemen picked up 
the children, two others helped the lady to the 
car platform, two others handed up her bags 
and packages. "I venture the guess," said Mr. 
Beecher, in telling me the incident, "that that 
poor woman never before had so many cavaliers 
attending on her. There's good will enough in 
the world; all that is necessary is to call it out." 
He could and did. But as he told me the in- 
cident I had to confess to myself that I could 
not and probably should not have tried. 

His sympathies were not confined to men of 
any race or creed, social class or moral character. 
They were not even confined to men. To Paul's 
question: "Does God take care of our oxen?" 
Mr.Beecher's reply would have been "Certainly." 
He enjoyed flowers and precious stones, but he 
was fond of birds, horses, and dogs. When I 
was looking for my first parish he advised me to 
notice what kind of horses the farmers drove 
when they came to town. "Wide-awake teams," 
he said, "indicate a wide-awake community." 
He drove a good pair himself. His sympathy 
with animals in distress, his readiness to come 
to their relief, and his resourcefulness are illus- 
trated by an incident told to me in a letter by a 

233 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

correspondent which I cannot better tell than 
in the words of the narrator, now ninety years of 
age, but written by him when he was a boy in the 
Indianapolis Seminary. How Mr. Beecher ap- 
peared on the scene the boy does not tell in his 
composition. 

It was the first day in the year 1847. The rain had been 
pouring down with undeseribable fury; as if the clouds 
had been shedding tears and thundering their requiem on 
account of the sad parting which they had so lately taken 
of the "Old Year." Being obhged to go over into the 
city, I saddled my horse, called my dog Ben, and started 
off (By the way Ben was a large "Bulldog" and it is stated 
that he was born without a tail, which as far as I know was 
the truth, for even at the time he was shot for killing sheep 
it was not larger than a hickory nut) . Proceeding through 
mud and water we soon came to the creek. There I by 
dint of getting the most of my body on the top of the horse 
passed through unseated by the tide. But Ben was not 
so fortunate, for having no horse to ride he was obliged to 
swim. We passed on but soon came to another bayou 
even worse than the former. This Ben tried to pass over 
on top of the fence, but having arrived about the middle of 
the fence was unable either to return or proceed. There 
he remained all that day and night and half the next day. 
In the mean time I had gone on, not knowing what had de- 
tained him and had it not been for Rev. H. Beecher, the 
poor dog would have died. He made a raft of wash tubs, 
much in the Swiss-Family -Robinson fashion, but this did 
not succeed, for having launched it, it turned over and left 
him floundering in the water. He next made a common 
board raft; but forgot to make allowance for the weight of 

234 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

the dog, so that when he took him on, the raft sunk and 
both were obhged to choose the alternative sink or swim, 
live or die, survive or perish. On reaching the shore Mr. B. 
looked back to see how Ben had fared but to his sorrow 
found that he had clambered back to his old situation. 
But Mr. B. was not to be disheartened by these failures, 
for he went to a neighbouring board yard and made a stout 
raft and thus brought the shivering dog to shore. Ben 
was so glad to land on "terra firma" that he frightened Mrs. 
Beecher, ran over the children, and bedaubed Mr. B. from 
head to foot with his dirty paws. And ever after when 
his benefactor would come to our house, the first thing 
he would do would be to endeavour to throw his paws 
around his neck and embrace him. 

Nor were Mr. Beeclier's deeper spiritual 
faiths in immortality and in what men have 
called the impracticable precepts of Jesus Christ 
less a part of his inward experience nor less 
manifest in his daily life. 

At a prayer meeting once, in the time of his 
greatest prosperity and his unclouded fame, he 
said something to this effect: "I am very 
happy; I have a home rich in love; a devoted 
people; am surrounded by my friends; with 
everything to make me joyful. But nothing 
could give me greater happiness than to hear my 
heavenly Father say to me to-night : 'Your work 
is done. You can come home.'" His aged 
father, who was no longer able to preach, sitting 
directly in front of his son, sprang to his feet 

235 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

with a vehement rebuke. "Henry," he cried, 
"I am ashamed of you. You ought not to be 
wiUing to stop. Would that God would call 
me back to go on with the war ! " The son made 
some gentle reply, and called for a hymn to close 
the meeting. But the contrast emphasized the 
constant message of the son that there are not 
two worlds but only one, that the curtain that 
separates them is easily brushed aside; that 
death is "friendly." 

When some years later he was put on trial 
for what was more than his life, his honour as a 
Christian minister, he continued preaching every 
Sunday morning, refused any other relief than 
ceasing his public lecturing and his Sunday even- 
ing sermons, refused to talk about the case with 
any one but his lawyers, and refused to talk 
with them on Saturday, because, as he said, 
"You cannot raise cream if you keep the milk 
in the pan always stirring." And the people 
reported that never had his sermons a deeper 
spiritual tone. While his friends, though their 
faith in him was never shaken, still feared for 
his good name, he maintained an untroubled 
mind and had, I believe, very rarely a wakeful 
night. He once expressed his assurance of the 
inefficiency of wickedness to achieve its aims by 
saying to me, with a scorn which no type can 
possibly portray: "I tell you, Abbott, the 

236 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

name of the wicked shall rotr' But when later 
one of his accusers had left the country and was 
living self-exiled in Paris, and another was re- 
ported to be involved in business difficulties 
and in danger of bankruptcy, he said to me, with 
tears in his eyes and in his voice: "I would like 

to lend some money to and I think I could 

raise it, but I suppose it would not do. It would 
be misunderstood." 

History has justified his confidence and illus- 
trated the whole of the text: "The memory of 
the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked 
shall rot." Never in my lifetime, nor I think 
in the history of the world, has so great honour 
been paid at death to a purely private citizen, 
who never held a public office in the nation, 
and never a higher office in the state than that 
of pastor in a local church. 

He died from the breaking of a blood-vessel 
in the brain on March 8, 1887. From the hour 
of his death until the day of his funeral the flags 
in Brooklyn were at half mast and the public 
buildings were draped in token of the loss that 
the community had sustained. The coloured 
clergymen of Brooklyn expressed the desire to 
attend his funeral in a body, which privilege was 
accorded them. The New York Legislature ap- 
pointed a committee to attend the funeral, and 
both Houses were adjourned. In Brooklyn on 

237 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

the day of the funeral the pubHc oflSces were 
closed and business was in a large measure sus- 
pended. Plymouth Church could not contain 
the congregation that gathered. Four other 
churches in the neighbourhood were filled to 
overflowing with men and women who had come 
to pay their respects to the deceased preacher, 
and it was estimated at the time that had double 
the number of churches been opened they would 
all have been filled. Among those attending 
were several Roman Catholic priests. Not the 
least significant incident in connection with 
these services was the fact that there was no 
black drapery used in the church or in the home; 
instead were flowers. The family put on no 
mourning. Mr. Beecher had often said: "Strew 
flowers on my grave, but let no heathenish use 
of black be used as a token of sorrow when I 
have passed from death into life eternal." 
This desire, so characteristic of the man, was 
faithfully observed. 

Mr. Beecher was a great preacher because 
he was a great and good man; pure as a woman; 
simple as a little child; frank to a fault. His 
most intimate friend never heard from his lips 
a suggestion of a salacious jest; I never knew the 
man bold enough to venture on one in his pres- 
ence. He was incapable of deceit or artifice. 
He could conceal, when concealment was nec- 

238 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

essary, only by maintaining an absolutely im- 
penetrable reserve. His life was more eloquent 
than his speech; he was. most eloquent when he 
most failed to say what he wished to say. He 
was not logical; the seer never is. He was a 
revelator. What he had seen in the closet he 
disclosed in the pulpit. He was a man of God 
and walked with God. These phrases are so 
contaminated with cant that the pen shrinks 
from writing them. But they are phrases full 
of a divine meaning. It is possible to walk with 
God; to have a personal acquaintance with him 
through his Son, Jesus Christ; to be a tabernacle 
for God's indwelling. No one who knew Mr. 
Beecher intimately, in the varieties of his ex- 
perience from hours of the lightest merriment to 
experiences of the deepest sorrow, could question 
that this companionship with God was the 
secret of his power. 



239 



I 



PHILLIPS BROOKS, PROPHET OF THE 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 

N THE spring of 1889 I received the follow 
ing letter from Phillips Brooks: 



233 Clarendon Street, Boston, 

May 30, 1889. 
My dear Dr. Abbott : 

Professor Peabody tells me that there is some sign of a 
prospect that you may join our Company of Preachers at 
Harvard College. 

I cannot help saying how thoroughly delightful I should 
think it if such a thing should come to pass. It is the most 
interesting work that I have ever had to do. I am sure 
that, done as you could do it, it would be full of new value 
and satisfaction. 

This being the case — and you having nothing on Earth 
to do at present — I dare to hope that what the Professor 
suggests may really come. God grant it! 

Ever sincerely yours 
Phillips Brooks. 
Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott. 

The "Company of Preachers" to which Phil- 
lips Brooks alludes was a group of six, one of 
whom was a university professor who had over- 
sight of the rehgious life of the University; the 

240 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 

other five were non-residents invited for the 
current year. Each minister usually preached 
for four Sundays, conducted morning prayers 
for four weeks, and after prayers held morning 
conferences with such students as wished to call 
upon him. The call to share in this service de- 
lighted me. But engaged then in both ministe- 
rial and editorial work, I hesitated to take on a 
new responsibility. Phillips Brooks's letter de- 
cided me. From that time until the day of his 
death in 1893 I was a co-worker, though not con- 
tinuously, with Phillips Brooks in the Harvard 
"Company of Preachers." 

I have known greater orators than Phillips 
Brooks. Henry Ward Beecher had more stops 
in his organ; Daniel Webster was more massive, 
his sentences were more heavily weighted; 
Abraham Lincoln was more persuasive — no 
utterance of Phillips Brooks's had the effect on 
the Nation of Abraham Lincoln's Cooper-Union 
address or the immortality of his Gettysburg 
address. But no orator I ever heard was more 
inspirational. A friend of Phillips Brooks, who 
knew him well, admired him greatly, and pos- 
sessed rare psychological insight, indicated in the 
one word "abundance" his distinguishing char- 
acteristic. "You will find," said he, "the word 
'abundant' in almost every sermon: abundant 
life, abundant light, abundant grace, abundant 

241 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

goodness." The trees of the Lord, said the 
Psalmist, are full. Phillips Brooks was one of 
the trees of the Lord. 

Physically he was an impressive specimen of 
manhood — stood, I am sure, something over six 
feet in his stockings and could not have weighed 
less than two hundred and fifty pounds. But 
he was not corpulent; had not the appearance 
of carrying an ounce of superfluous flesh. He 
enjoyed marvellous health. Two years before 
his death he told me that he had never known 
what it was to be tired. More's the pity! If 
he had rested more, he might have lived longer. 
He never apparently spared himself; rarely, if 
ever, declined to render a service to the public or 
to a friend if acceptance was possible; did not, 
I think, use a shorthand writer in his correspon- 
dence until after his election as bishop; all his 
letters to me were written with his own hand. 
His beautiful library was on the ground floor of 
his bachelor home on Marlboro Street in Boston, 
and visitors were apparently always welcome. 
When and where and how he read and studied I 
do not know, but that he was both a careful stu- 
dent and a wide reader is abundantly indicated 
by his sermons. I asked him once when he did 
his reading. His reply was characteristic of a 
man who never talked about himself. "I have," 
he replied, *'a cottage at Andover where I go in 

242 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 

the summer. And every year I take up a book 
and read it there; and — well — the next year I 
take up another book." 

His body was a fit tabernacle for a large mind. 
He had a wide horizon, intellectually lived in the 
open country, was interested in large themes. 
But no themes seemed to him large unless they 
concerned human life. His thinking was always 
suffused with feeling; but his feelings were always 
under his control. He was never an indifferentist 
and never an enthusiast. 

He was a loyal, consistent, and conscientious 
Churchman. But ecclesiastical questions did 
not interest him. In the meetings of the House 
of Bishops the newly elected bishops sit in the 
rear of the church, the older ones in front. In 
the first meeting after Phillips Brooks's election, 
toward the close of the session Bishop Henry C. 
Potter was passing out. Bishop Brooks stopped 
him with this whispered question: "Henry, is it 
always as dull as this.'^" 

Mr. Beecher once said in my hearing: "Schol- 
ars talk about essential truths. Essential 
to what.^ Essential to a perfect system, or 
essential to a perfect life.f^" The only truths 
that Phillips Brooks regarded as essential were 
the truths that contributed something to life. 
I do not know what Phillips Brooks thought 
about evolution as a biological theory or whether 

243 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

he thought about it at all, nor what sociological 
theory of industrial and political development 
he held, or whether he had ever formulated for 
himself any theory. But this I do know : That 
in the seed he saw the flower, and in the babe the 
man, and in the tribe the nation; that he believed 
that life is an end in itself not a means to some 
other end, as happiness either here or hereafter; 
that this life of God, this divine life, this Christ- 
life is possible to men here and now; that it is not 
something external to man, but an experience in 
man. Phillips Brooks believed in this life be- 
cause he possessed it; and it so abounded in him 
as to overflow, as water out of a great fountain, 
so irradiated him as to shine out, giving light 
and life always and everywhere. 

It was this life of God in his own soul and this 
faith that it broods over all men and is manifest 
in all the natural and healthful activities of man 
that made him the inspiring preacher that he 
was. I sat next to him once at a public dinner 
where we were both to speak on a semi-political 
topic. He said to me: "I don't know what 
to say on this theme to-night. Religion is 
always easy to talk on; it is so natural. Don't 
you think so?" He was fond of and familiar 
with architecture. "They say," he said, "that 
the grotesque gargoyles were put on the outside 
of the cathedrals to represent the evil spirits 

244 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 

being driven out from the house of God. I think 
it far more Ukely they were expressions of that 
humour that is innate in all men and finds ex- 
pression in our time in newspaper caricatures." 
And he told me that when his own church was 
being decorated it was discovered that the 
painter had put a grotesque figure on the ceiling, 
and I believe it became necessary to put the 
scaffold up again in order to take this figure out. 
Thus his faith in the universal presence of God 
in all innocent and healthful human activities is 
illustrated by his understanding of children. 
No grown-up, I think, ever understood them 
better. He had in some respects a child's mind, 
which is very different from a childish mind. 
Jesus said that one must become as a little child 
if he would enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
Phillips Brooks remained as a little child after 
he had entered that kingdom. Staying with a 
friend, he went up to his room to get ready for 
supper and did not return. After some delay 
the lady of the house went up to call him, and 
found him in the nursery sitting on the floor with 
the children as his hosts, having afternoon tea 
out of their toy cups and saucers. This was no 
act of condescension on his part. He enjoyed 
it as much as they. In his charming letters of 
travel none are more charming than those to his 
nephews and nieces. 

245 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

One incident in my own association with 
Phillips Brooks which brought us into very close 
fellowship illustrates his catholicity, his com- 
parative unconcern about ecclesiastical and 
theological theories, his interest in the various 
phases of the spiritual life, and his understanding 
of children. 

On January 16, 1890, a Congregational Coun- 
cil was to be held in Plymouth Church to ordain 
to the Christian ministry my associate, Howard 
S. Bliss, and to instal him and myself as co- 
pastors of that church. After the death of 
Henry Ward Beecher there was no man in the 
Christian ministry whom I revered and loved 
as I did Phillips Brooks. With some hesitation, 
I wrote to him, telling him of the expected ser- 
vice and that there was no man whose presence 
and participation I so much desired as his, yet I 
did not want to ask him to violate a canon or 
rubric of his Church, and with them I was not 
familiar. Could he and would he come? I re- 
ceived in reply the following letter: 

Wadsworth 

December 2, 1889. 

Dear Dr. Abbott: 

I know you will not think it indifference or carelessness 

which has left your kind & welcome & surprising note so 
long unanswered. It has been only the waiting for that 
leisure half hour which never comes & which we always 
keep the delightful delusion of expecting. But I must not 

246 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 

wait for it any longer & so, between the students' visits, I 
will tell you first how truly I thank you for the friendly im- 
pulse which made you wish that I should come and take 
any part in the most interesting service of your installation. 
I value that impulse of yours very deeply and I always 
shall. I may most frankly say that there is no man from 
whom I should more joyfully receive such a token of con- 
fidence & affection. 

I should like exceedingly to come, I would make every 
effort to do so. There is nothing I am sure in any Canon 
or Rubric which would prevent my coming. I am not 
very wise in Rubrics or Canons, but I do not remember one 
which says a word about our ministers sitting in Congre- 
gational Councils. The only questions in my mind are 
two. First, about the date. Your letter is not by me here 
but I think you do not give the exact date, and there are 
so many foolish promises which I have made to do foolish 
things in the early part of January that I do not dare to feel 
absolutely sure of escaping during that time. 

The other question is as to the function of a member of 
an Ordaining Council. I am disgracefully ignorant. I 
have been nothing but an Episcopalian all my life. What 
does an Installer do, I wonder. And what would the Con- 
gregationalists say when they saw me there.'' 

Would it not be better that I should come, if possible, 
and utter the interest which I really deeply feel by giving 
out a hymn or reading a Lesson from Scripture at the 
Installation service.? And then if at the last moment 
something here made it impossible for me to come, per- 
haps another man might do my important duty in my place 
and I should be with you in spirit and bid you godspeed 
all the same. 

These are my questions. In view of them, do with me 
what you think best. I hope I have written intelligently, 

247 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

but since I began to write several of these boys have been 
in with their big questions which they ask with as much 
apparent expectation of an immediate & satisfactory 
answer as if they were inquiring the way to Boston. How 
deHghtful they are ! We are all rejoicing in the good work 
which you did here and left behind you. It was a dis- 
tinct refreshment & enlargement of all that had been done 
before. We will do our best to keep the fire from going 
out until you come again. 

Meanwhile, I hope I have not written too vaguely about 
the Council & I am, 

Ever faithfully yours, 

Phillips Brooks. 

He came and made one of the four addresses 
of that occasion. It was a characteristic in- 
terpretation of the life of the spirit; but nothing 
in it so much endeared him to us all as an in- 
cident in our home, which I have asked my 
daughter to write for insertion here : 

At the time of my father's installation, there 
was held at our house a luncheon for those who 
were of the Ordaining Council. I was about 
twelve years old at the time, and I suppose that 
my mother thought that it would be a valuable 
memory for me to have, so she insisted that I 
should come and sit in a chair at my father's side 
during the dessert. Naturally, I was not very 
enthusiastic about the prospect, for I much pre- 
ferred playing out of doors to listening to a num- 
ber of ministers talk theology. Shortly after I 

248 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 

had come into the room and taken the appointed 
place I noticed a big man who sat, if I remember 
rightly, about half way up the table. He was 
teUing Father all about the games the little Japa- 
nese girls played, and also giving Father a de- 
scription of the Japanese toys. I thought to 
myself that at least one minister knew what was 
interesting, for all the others stopped talking 
and listened, too. After the luncheon I tried to 
slip out of the way, so as to attract as little at- 
tention as possible, when I saw the same big man 
come round the end of the table toward me and 
I soon found my hand lost in his. 

"Would you like to go to Japan?" said he. 

"Yes, sir," I gasped. 

"We'll go then," said he. 

He then took me into the front room and told 
me more about that part of his travels in Japan 
which would interest a child. The one thing 
that remains in my mind is that he said that 
in greeting each other the Japanese bowed way 
down to the ground (I think it was the Japanese) , 
and that it was not so hard for them to do it, 
as they were not so very tall. "It was harder 
for me," said he, "and very hard for my friend 
Doctor McVicker, who is just exactly twice as tall 
as I am." 

From that time Phillips Brooks was in my 
mind a "truly friend of mine," although I did 

249 



J _ 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

not see him again until I was about sixteen. 
I was staying in Cambridge with my father, 
when one day he asked me if I would like to go 
into Boston with him and leave my card on 
Phillips Brooks in addition to doing some sight- 
seeing. We had very little idea that we would 
find Bishop Brooks at home, but, to our delight, 
he came to greet us immediately on our sending 
in our cards. He took us to his study, and what 
impressed me more than anything else was the 
contrast between him and some other ministers 
on whom Father had taken me to call. They all 
were cordial and friendly, but very soon after 
the greeting they would talk with Father about 
theology and I would wait with as much patience 
as I could summon until the call was over. Not 
so Bishop Brooks. He, from the beginning, 
talked about things in which both Father and I 
could be interested. That day, I remember, he 
told us how the carvings in many of the cathed- 
rals in Europe were the only means by which 
the artists of olden time could express their 
sense of humour and he cited instances of the 
humour in those carvings. After a short call 
Father said we must not keep him any longer. 
This is my recollection of that conversation: 

Bishop Brooks. People think that because 
I am a bishop I am busy. I'm not busy. 

My father, I feel sure that we have taken as 

250 



J 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 

much of your time as we should, and besides I 
want my daughter to see your church. 

Bishop Brooks {to me). Now, wouldn't you 
rather see me than see my church? (To my 
father.) You surely have nothing to do here. 
It is just because you are so busy at home that 
you think you must be busy here, too. 

However, my father insisted that we must go. 
Then Bishop Brooks turned to me and said: 
"The next time you come to Boston, bring 
your knitting work and spend the after- 
noon." 

In both cases — ^the first time when I was twelve 
and the next time when I was sixteen — ^I was im- 
pressed by the fact that he took the trouble and 
was able to understand the interests of others, 
and so could establish at once friendly relations. 
He died not long after our last call upon him, 
and, like thousands, I felt I had lost a personal 
friend. I had seen him but twice. 

How far he was a pastor in his parish I have 
no means of knowing. To have called systema- 
tically on stated days so as to visit every family 
once a year would have been foreign to his na- 
ture. But his acquaintance with God and his 
sympathetic understanding of men made him 
a wise counsellor in spiritual perplexity and a 
strength-giving comforter in time of sorrow. 
The number of students who called upon him 

251 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

in his university ministry evidenced the first; 
the following incident narrated to me, though 
not by him, illustrates the second : 

A young man who was living with his wife 
and their infant child in a boarding-house in 
Boston trying to save money with which to buy 
an interest in the business in which he served, 
attended Trinity Church irregularly on Sundays, 
sitting in the gallery. His child died suddenly. 
The young wife was heartbroken and half 
crazed by the suddenness of the blow. She 
would not relinquish the babe, but held it in her 
arms and rocked it as though it were asleep. 
Nothing he could say had any effect. The 
motherly landlady suggested that he call on 
Phillips Brooks. He was reluctant; had never 
met him, was not a member of his church, nor 
even of his regular and recognized congregation. 
But despair for his wife reinforced the counsel 
of his landlady. He went to the rector's house; 
found access easy to the rector's study, as did 
all callers; and before he had finished his story 
was interrupted. "I will go with you," said 
the rector. They went together to the house 
of sorrow, and found the wife and mother still 
rocking the babe in her arms as though in 
sleep. Phillips Brooks leaned over and looked 
on the sleeping babe. "What a beautiful 
child!" he said. "Would you let me rock him 

252 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 

for a little while?" The mother laid the babe 
ill the rector's arms and he took the mother's 
chair. Then, responding to a gesture of Phillips 
Brooks, the husband led the mother from the 
room. When he returned. Doctor Brooks asked 
when the funeral was to be, himself proposed to 
attend it, and an hour after he had gone there 
came a bunch of lilies with his card for the 
morrow. The man who wrote: "The priest 
should be, above all things, a man with an in- 
tense and live humanity," illustrated his defi- 
nition by his deeds. Never, I think, was priest 
more honoured and loved than he. 

I at first had intended to entitle this chapter 
"Phillips Brooks, A Catholic Priest." But a 
wise friend advised me to change the title. 
"To the average reader," she said, "it will sug- 
gest ideas that you do not wish to suggest 
and it will arouse prejudices that subsequent 
explanations in the chapter will not easily al- 
lay." I think she was right and I changed the 
title. But if it is true that a catholic is one whose 
mind appreciates all truth, and whose spirit 
appreciates all that is good, and if a priest 
is one who by his conduct of public wor- 
ship interprets the unspoken experiences of a 
silent congregation to themselves by speaking 
for them to a listening Father, then Phillips 
Brooks was preeminently a catholic priest. Al- 

253 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

most the last act of his Hfe illustrated, because it 
unconsciously expressed, his catholic spirit. A 
correspondent in a letter to me has narrated 
this act with such beautiful simplicity that I 
transfer it here to my pages : 

Readville, Mass. 
June 13, 1921. 
Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D. 
Dear Sir: 

I read with the deepest interest your tribute to Phillips 
Brooks in a recent number of the Outlook. The last, 
sermon he preached was in our little Union chapel — not 
200 feet from my home where I am now writing. It was 
my pleasant duty to secure the various preachers who 
ministered to us (we had no pastor). I learned that he 
was to preach in Hyde Park Sunday morning Jan. 15 
[1893] and was to give a "talk" in the evening in East 
Dedham. He had never heard of our chapel, and certainly 
had never heard of me, but I wrote him a brief note telling 
what a joy it would be to us, if in the afternoon, he would 
preach to our little congregation of Methodists, Baptists, 
Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and a few Episcopalians. 
I didn't expect he would come, I simply cherished a forlorn 
hope that he might. 

To my great surprise and intense delight I received inafew 
days a card from him, accepting the invitation and closing 
with the beautiful words I can never forget: "I thank 
you for inviting me," He came, and preached a sermon 
which those who heard must still remember. Had he 
stood in some grand cathedral before a throng of the rich 
and great, he could not have been more earnest, or more 
eloquent. In a week our hearts were broken when the 

254 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 

morning papers told us the great man, preacher, and bishop 
was dead. Two splendid portraits of him in his prime 
hang on the walls of our chapel, and his memory still makes 
the place sacred. 

After Doctor Brooks's death a unique meet- 
ing was held in New York City which was an 
unconscious tribute to the catholicity of one 
who had endeared himself to men of all faiths 
and to many who appeared to have none 
at all, by his appreciation of all truth and 
of all that is good. A young man called at 
the office of the Outlook to suggest to me that 
a public meeting should be held in New York 
in memory of Phillips Brooks. I have since 
learned that he was a teacher in one of the public 
schools of the city, that he was not a churchman 
and was by no means a regular attendant at 
any church, but was a grateful admirer of 
PhiUips Brooks because of the inspiration which 
the spirit of Phillips Brooks had imparted to 
his spirit. He represented no church, no or- 
ganization, no committee, and had never spoken 
with Phillips Brooks, but urged that there ought 
to be a spontaneous and unsectarian expression 
of the universal reverence and the universal 
sorrow. I sympathized with his desire but dis- 
couraged his attempt. To organize a great 
meeting in a great conglomerate city like New 
York is never easy. To do it without support 

255 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

previously pledged seemed to me impossible. 
Would I attend? Yes. And speak? Yes. 

A week later I received notice that a meet- 
ing would be held and that Carnegie Hall, 
the largest hall in the city, had been secured. 
There was still no organization, no committee. 
There was no extraordinary advertising. But 
when, on the appointed evening, I reached the 
place, the hall was crowded to its utmost ca- 
pacity, and the speakers included a Jewish 
rabbi, a Roman Catholic priest. New York's 
most eloquent lawyer, and four Protestant 
clergymen. The young man was not to be seen; 
and I have never seen him since. The speeches 
were as simple, as spontaneous, and as catholic 
as the audience. Rabbi Gustav Gottlieb said 
of the man we came to honour: "He was not 
bishop of his Church only, he was my bishop also 
by divine calling and consecration. " The Roman 
Catholic priest said of him that he "was about 
his Master's work. He seemed emancipated 
from all human vanity." And I venture to 
bring this tribute of affectionate reverence to a 
close by quoting a sentence from my own closing 
address on that memorable occasion: 

"We have been wondering, Is there any God? 
And we have been reaching out in nature to find 
the evidence of him. And suddenly there ap- 
pears before us the divine shining in one 

256 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 

great illuminated nature, one that is full of 
God; and while we stood in his presence, while 
we heard his voice, while we were looking in his 
eyes and he was looking into ours, then did God 
come again; then did we realize that God is; then 
did we feel that God speaks to the heart of man 
through the heart of man." 



257 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, STATESMAN 

MR. ROOSEVELT once sent me a news- 
paper clipping which Mr. Washington 
had sent to him with a note affirming its 
truth. I returned the cHpping to Mr. Roose- 
velt and quote it here from memory. 

A Southern gentleman, meeting Mr. Wash- 
ington in Florida, said to him, "Professor Wash- 
ington, you are the greatest man in the country." 

Mr. Washington. Oh, no, sir! you mustn't 
think that. There are many men much greater 
than I am. 

Gentleman. Name one. 

Mr. Washington. Well, sir. President Roose- 
velt is a much greater man than I am. 

Gentleman. No, sir! I used to think he 
was a great man until he invited you to lunch- 
eon. 

This testimony from a Southerner to the great- 
ness of Mr. Washington was by no means unique. 
It represented a considerable sentiment of respect 
throughout the South for Mr. Washington's char- 
acter as a man and as a publicist. 

A number of years ago, during Mr. McKin- 
ley's presidency, I was in a Southern town in 

258 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

one of the border states where I had gone to 
preach or to lecture. Half a dozen prominent 
citizens were invited by my host to meet me. 
They were all Southerners. I was the only one 
in the company who resided north of Mason 
and Dixon's line. The conversation at the sup- 
per table drifted toward politics and then to 
estimates of some of our public men. The ques- 
tion was raised who our gi*eatest statesman was. 
Each gentleman present gave his estimate. 
With one exception they all declared Booker 
Washington to be the greatest statesman. The 
one exception put Mr. McKinley first and 
Booker Washington second. 

If comparisons are odious, superlatives are 
impossible. There is no greatest poem, or 
greatest statue, or greatest picture, or greatest 
book, or greatest text in the Bible; though these 
are constantly being asked for by writers to the 
newspapers. Every useful product of human 
effort has its own peculiar value. Which is the 
more important in a watch i^ — the hair spring or 
the main spring? Both are essential. I would 
not, therefore, agree that Booker W^ashington is 
the greatest statesman; but he was, certainly, 
one of the great statesmen of his century. 

WTiat do I mean by statesman.^ 

I shall not assume the office of a lexicographer 
or go to the dictionaries to get the meaning of 

259 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

the word, but give the meaning which I attach 
to it in estimating the public men of history. 
Hegel says, "God governs the world; the actual 
working of his government — the carrying out 
of his plan — is the History of the World." He 
is a statesman who understands that plan, 
reads aright the enigma of his age, and success- 
fully cooperates in achieving the divine purpose. 
Cavour was a statesman; Bismarck was not. 
Both worked to accomplish a national unity; one 
in Germany, the other in Italy. But Bismarck 
thought that national unity could be accom- 
plished by uniting different governments under 
one imperial head through the power of a great 
army. Cavour saw that national unity could 
be accomplished only by uniting a dissevered 
people in one community by inspiring them with 
a common spirit and a common purpose. Italy, 
united from within, was never more a unit than 
it is to-day. War, the fickle patron saint of 
Germany which gave to her Alsace and Lorraine 
in the nineteenth century, has given them back 
to France in the twentieth century, and what is 
to be the fate of shattered Germany no one can 
foretell. 

Booker T. Washington was a great statesman 
because he understood the meaning of his age 
and gave himself a willing and intelHgent instru- 
ment to the beneficent solution of his nation's 

260 



BOOKER T. WASfflNGTON 

problem. The Civil War had established the 
authority of the National Government, but it 
still remained to unite North and South by a 
common spirit and a common purpose; it had 
set free the slave, but it still remained to estab- 
lish new relations of mutual friendliness and re- 
spect between the races; it had abolished the 
old system of compulsory labour, but it still re- 
mained to create a new system of free labour; it 
had stricken the shackles from the limbs of the 
slave, but it still remained to strike the shackles 
from his mind and to teach him and his neigh- 
bour the rights, the duties, and the responsibilities 
of freedom. To this task Booker Washington 
devoted his life with singleness of purpose, clear- 
ness of vision, and patience of endeavour. 

He has told the story of his life verj^ simply 
and very modestly in his autobiography: "Up 
from Slavery"; a book which is a valuable addi- 
tion both to American history and to American 
literature. It is preeminently a book for Amer- 
ican boys and girls and ought to be in every 
school library in the country. Out of this 
book the thoughtful reader can easily get some 
impression of the spirit that animated Mr. 
Washington and the principles that governed 
him "during his extraordinary career. How 
far these principles were carefully thought out 
and accurately defined by himself to himself; 

261 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

how far they were unconsciously imbibed from 
the great leaders whose examples he emulated — 
General Armstrong and Doctor Frissell; and 
how far they were born in him and cultivated by 
his own reflection upon the experiences and ob- 
servations of his own life I do not know, and 
I do not think he knew. Nor is it important 
for us to inquire. 

Booker T. Washington was born in 1858 or 
1859 — he does not know the day or the month. 
His mother was a slave and a woman of unusual 
character. He does not know who his father 
was. After emancipation and he began to go 
to school he found the other boys had two 
names while he had but one. To meet the 
dilemma he adopted his surname. "When the 
teacher asked me what my full name was, I 
calmly told him 'Booker Washington,' as if I 
had been called by that name all my life. . . . 
I think there are not many men in our country 
who have had the privilege of naming them- 
selves in the way that I have." From the very 
first he shared the ambition common to his race : 
he was eager to get an education. His mother 
aided him; his stepfather did not. The boy was 
earning money by his work in a mine and it 
was with difficulty that he got permission to 
attend school at all, and much of the time could 
attend only a night school. "Often," he writes, 

262 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

"I would have to walk several miles at night in 
order to recite my night-school lessons. There 
was never a time in my youth, no matter how 
dark and discouraging the days might be, when 
one resolve did not continually remain with 
me, and that was a determination to secure an 
education at any cost." He chanced to over- 
hear two miners talking about a great school 
for coloured people somewhere in Virginia and 
resolved at once to go to it, although he had 
no idea where it was, nor how many miles away, 
nor how he was going to reach it. The dis- 
tance was about five hundred miles. The little 
money that he had been able to accumulate 
partly by his saving, partly by gifts to him from 
Negro neighbours, was entirely exhausted by 
the time he had reached Richmond. He slept 
under a wooden sidewalk with his satchel for a 
pillow, earned a little money by working in 
unloading a ship, and finally reached Hampton 
with fifty cents in his pocket with which to 
begin his education. The story of his unique 
examination, though probably familiar to many 
of my readers, is so significant and so simply and 
graphically told by Booker Washington that I 
quote from his narrative here : 

I presented myself before the head teacher for assign- 
ment to a class. Having been so long without proper 
food, a bath, and change of clothing, I did not, of course, 

263 



SILHOn:TTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

make a very favourable impression upon her, and I could 
see at once that there were doubts in her mind about the 
wisdom of admitting me as a student. I saw her admitting 
other students and felt deep down in my heart that I could 
do as well as they if I could only get the chance to show 
what was in me. After some hours had passed the head 
teacher said to me : "The adjoining recitation room needs 
sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it." 

I swept the recitation room three times. Then I got a 
dusting-cloth and I dusted it four times. All the wood- 
work around the walls, every bench, table, and desk, I 
went over four times with my dusting-cloth. Besides, 
every piece of furniture had been moved and every closet 
and corner in the room had been thoroughly cleaned. I 
had the feeling that in a large measure my future de- 
pended upon the impression I made upon the teacher in 
the cleaning of that room. ^Yhen I was through, I re- 
ported to the head teacher. She was a "Yankee " woman 
who knew just where to look for dirt. She went into the 
room and inspected the floor and closets; then she took 
her handkerchief and rubbed it on the woodwork about 
the walls, and over the table and benches. ^Mien she was 
unable to find one bit of dirt on the floor, or a particle of 
dust on any of the furniture, she quietly remarked, "I 
guess you will do to enter this institution." 

He had exemplified one of the lessons which he 
was to spend his life in teaching to others: the 
way to secure respect is not to demand it, but 
to earn it. 

His successful passing of this examination 
won for him the position of janitor which he 
gladly accepted because he could thus work out 

264 



BOOKER T. WASHIXGTOX 

nearly all the cost of his board. How little fa- 
miliarity he had with the elements of what we 
are accustomed to call civilization is indicated 
by the fact that he had never before slept in a 
bed with sheets and they were a puzzle to him. 
"The first night I slept under both of them, and 
the second night I slept on top of both of them, 
but by w^atching the other boys I learned my les- 
son in this, and have been trying to follow it 
ever since and to teach it to others." Another 
lesson which he learned in those Hampton years, 
not from the textbooks, but from the life, was 
the value of unselfish service. "One of the 
things that impressed itself upon me deeply, 
the second year, was the unselfishness of the 
teachers. It was hard for me to understand 
how many individuals could bring themselves 
to the point where they could be so happy in 
w^orking for others. Before the end of the year 
I think I began learning that those who are hap- 
piest are those who do the most for others. This 
lesson I have tried to carry with me ever since." 
He learned also the use and value of the Bible. 
"I learned to love to read the Bible, not only 
for the spiritual help which it gives, but on ac- 
count of its literature. The lessons taught me 
in this respect took such a hold upon me that 
at the present time, when I am at home, no 
matter how busy I am, I always make it a rule 

265 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

to read a chapter or a portion of a chapter in 
the morning before beginning the work of the 
day." 

On graduating from Hampton he taught for 
two years and then decided to spend some 
months in study at Washington, D. C. Here 
he got a gHmpse of the effect of the so-called 
higher education upon the men of his race; the 
result was not appealing to him. A large pro- 
portion of the students by some means had their 
personal expenses paid for them. They were, 
in most cases, better dressed, had more money, 
and often were more brilliant mentally, but 
they were less self-dependent, gave more atten- 
tion to outer appearances, knew more about Latin 
and Greek, but less about life and its conditions 
as they would meet it at their homes, and were 
not as much inclined as were the Hampton stu- 
dents to get into the country districts of the South 
and work for the members of their own race. 

At the end of his term in Washington he 
received from a committee of white people in 
Charleston, West Virginia, an invitation to 
canvass the state in support of the proposal to 
transfer the capitol from Wheeling to Charles- 
ton. The reputation he acquired in that can- 
vass brought him an urgent invitation to engage 
in political life. At that time it was a popular 
notion among the coloured people that activity 

266 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

in politics was the sure method to win both in- 
fluence and fame. There was one Negro in the 
Senate of the United States and he had made 
there an excellent record. But Mr. Washington, 
young as he was, did not think that the best 
service to his race could be rendered in a political 
career. "Even then," he writes, "I had a 
strong feeling that what our people most needed 
was to get a foundation in education, industry, 
and property, and for this I felt that they could 
better afford to strive than for political prefer- 
ment. ... A very large proportion of the 
young men who went to school or to college did 
so with the expressed determination to prepare 
themselves to be great lawyers or congressmen, 
and many of the women planned to become music 
teachers; but I had a reasonably fixed idea, 
even at that early period in my life, that there 
was need for something to be done to prepare 
the way for successful lawyers, congressmen, 
and music teachers." 

Declining the seductive call to a political 
career, he went back to Hampton Institute to 
take up there the work of a teacher and to pursue 
some supplementary studies. A night school 
was presently started by General Armstrong for 
the purpose of opening the way for the education 
of young coloured men and women who were too 
poor to be able to contribute anything toward 

267 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

the cost of their board or even to supply them- 
selves with books. They were received on the 
condition that they were to work for ten hours 
during the day and attend school for two hours 
at night. Only those who had an eager desire 
for education would attempt such a school; only 
those who had patience would persist in it. 
Mr. Washington, by one of those inspirations 
which are a part of the furnishing of such a man, 
gave to his night school the title of "The Plucky 
Class," and after a student had been in the 
night school long enough to prove what was in 
him, he received a certificate: "This is to certify 
that James Smith is a member of The Plucky 
Class of the Hampton Institute and is in good 
and regular standing." This night school which 
started with only twelve students numbered 
three or four hundred when, in 1900, Mr. Wash- 
ington wrote his autobiography. 

Mr. Washington's administration of the night 
school was his final preparation for his life work. 
One year of that preparation sufficed. In 1881 
the Legislature of Alabama had appropriated 
two thousand dollars for starting a school for 
coloured people in Tuskegee, which had been 
previously an educational centre for the whites. 
The committee having this matter in charge 
wrote to Hampton Institute to recommend a 
principal. General Armstrong, the principal of 

268 



BOOKER T. WASfflNGTON 

Hampton Institute, recommended Mr. Washing- 
ton and to Tuskegee Mr. Washington went. 

He had expected to find there a building prop- 
erly equipped for school work. He found noth- 
ing of the kind, but did find "that which no 
costly building and apparatus can supply — 
hundreds of hungry, earnest souls who wanted 
to secure knowledge." There was no provision 
for securing land, buildings, and apparatus, and 
the annual appropriation made by the Legisla- 
ture of two thousand dollars could be used only 
for the payment of the salaries of the instructors. 
The best accommodations for the school Mr. 
Washington could discover in the town was the 
Coloured Methodist Church and a rather dilapi- 
dated shanty standing near it, both of them in 
so bad a condition that during the first month 
of school whenever it rained one of the students 
would leave his lessons to hold an umbrella over 
the teacher, and on more than one occasion the 
landlady held an umbrella over him while he 
ate his breakfast. 

There was plenty of need for the kind of edu- 
cation in which Mr. Washington believed and 
which it was his eager desire to furnish to the 
members of his race. In the county in which 
Tuskegee is situated the coloured people out- 
numbered the whites by about three to one. In 
the plantation districts, as a rule, the whole 

269 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

family slept in one room and guests shared the 
apartment with them. He writes that on more 
than one occasion, "I went outside the house 
to get ready for bed or to wait until the family 
had gone to bed. They usually contrived some 
kind of a place for me to sleep, either on the 
floor or in the special part of another's bed." 
Land about the cabin homes could easily have 
been used for kitchen gardens, but such gardens 
were practically unknown. The only object of 
the Negroes was to plant cotton which in many 
cases grew up to the very door of the cabin. 
Sewing machines, showy clocks, and parlour 
organs were often to be found in these cabins — 
clocks that did not keep time; sewing machines 
that no one knew how to use; organs on which 
no one could play. "On one occasion when I 
went into one of these cabins for dinner, when 
I sat down to the table for a meal with the four 
members of the family I noticed that, while 
there were five of us at the table, there was but 
one fork for the five of us to use." In general the 
crops were mortgaged and the coloured farmers 
were in debt. 

Such schools as existed were taught in churches 
or in log cabins, by teachers inadequately pre- 
pared for their work, and inadequately provided 
with books and apparatus. "I recall," says 
Mr. Washington, "that one day I went into 

270 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

a schoolhouse — or rather into an abandoned log 
cabin that was being used as a schoolhouse — 
and found five pupils who were studying a lesson 
from one book. Two of these, on the front seat, 
were using the book between them; behind these 
were two others peeping over the shoulders of the 
first two, and behind the four was a fifth little 
fellow who was peeping over the shoulders of 
all four." 

Of the thirty students who reported for ad- 
mission when Tuskegee Institute was opened, a 
greater part were public school teachers who 
came in order to be able to earn a bigger salary. 
Some had studied Latin, and one or two Greek; 
some thought they had mastered arithmetic 
and knew about banking and discount, but had 
not mastered the multiplication table. The 
girls could locate the Desert of Sahara or the 
capital of China on an artificial globe, but could 
not locate the proper places for the knives and 
forks on an actual dinner table, or the places on 
which the bread and meat should be set. That 
there was a lack of any acquaintance with the 
simplest rules of health, or any provision for 
complying with them, might not unreasonably be 
expected. There was generally no provision for 
washing in the one-room cabins, though there 
existed some sort of provision for washing at least 
the face and hands outside. Toothbrushes were 

271 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

unknown even at a much later date, though in 
time, and after much repetition, pupils seeking 
admission to the school learned that the posses- 
sion of a toothbrush was part of the required 
equipment. "I remember," writes Mr. Wash- 
ington, "that one morning, not long ago, I 
went with the lady principal on her usual morn- 
ing tour of inspection of the girls' rooms. We 
found one room that contained three girls who 
had recently arrived at the school. When I 
asked them if they had toothbrushes, one of 
the girls replied, pointing to a brush: 'Yes, sir. 
That is our brush. We bought it together yes- 
terday.' It did not take them long to learn a 
dijfferent lesson." 

In such circumstances the introduction of 
industrial education was attended with great 
difficulties. The greatest difficulty, however, 
was not the lack of equipment. It was the lack 
of desire on the part of the students for an in- 
dustrial education. Slavery, by making labour 
compulsory, had dishonoured it. The whites 
had disdained to labour; the blacks when eman- 
cipated were eager to escape labour. Pupils 
objected to use their hands in school work; they 
had come there, as one of them expressed it, to 
be educated, not to work. Letters came from 
parents protesting against their children en- 
gaging in labour while they were in school. 

272 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

Students brought requests from their parents 
to the effect that they wanted their children 
taught nothing but books. Rehgious teaching 
was summoned to the support of this inherited 
prejudice. An old coloured minister undertook 
to convince Mr. Washington from the story of 
Adam and the Garden of Eden that God had 
cursed all labour and therefore it was a sin for 
any man to work. But great difficulties seem 
never to have discouraged Booker Washington. 
Looking back upon his experiences in those first 
years at Tuskegee, and at details I have not 
space here to report, he writes : 

As I look back now over that part of our struggle, I am 
glad that we had it. I am glad that we endured all those 
discomforts and inconveniences. I am glad that our first 
boarding-place was in that dismal, ill-lighted, and damp 
basement. Had we started in a fine, attractive, con- 
venient room, I fear we would have "lost our heads" and 
become "stuck up." It means a great deal, I think, to 
start off on a foundation which one has made for one's 
self. 

In April, 1906, the twenty-fifth anniversary 
of the founding of Tuskegee Institute was cele- 
brated by appropriate exercises at Tuskegee. A 
special train from the North and local trains 
from the South brought to that celebration 
some two hundred distinguished visitors. Among 
them were such educational leaders as President 

273 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

Eliot of Harvard University, Principal Frissell 
of Hampton Institute, and President J. W. Aber- 
crombie of the University of Alabama; such 
business leaders as Andrew Carnegie and Robert 
C. Ogden; such reformers, philanthropists, and 
publicists as George McAneny, J. G. Phelps 
Stokes, and WiUiam H. Taft; the latter was 
supposed to represent the views of Mr. Roose- 
velt's administration of which he was an hon- 
oured member. They found in place of the 
dilapidated coloured Meeting House and its 
companion shanty an institute possessing 2,300 
acres of land, upward of ninety buildings, more 
than twelve hundred pupils, more than one 
hundred and fifty teachers, an aggregate endow- 
ment, including real estate, of more than two 
million dollars in value and involving a current 
expenditure of about one hundred and eighty 
thousand dollars a year. From its gates six 
thousand women had gone out to carry with 
them a leaven of intelligent industry throughout 
the South and some of them into distant lands; 
nearly five hundred had been trained in its 
Bible Training School for direct Christian work; 
upward of two thousand were engaged in teach- 
ing; and as a result of their efforts there had 
sprung up sixteen incorporated schools animated 
by its spirit and extending its work. It was stated 
then, and we think the statement is still true, 

274 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

that it was not known that a single graduate of 
the Institute had ever been convicted of a crime. 

Here we might bring this article to a close, for 
the building of Tuskegee Institute is rightly- 
regarded as Mr. Booker Washington's great 
achievement. But to justify our characteriza- 
tion of him as a great statesman one other dra- 
matic incident, and the incidents that led up 
to it, must be briefly narrated. 

Public speaking has formed a larger part of 
Mr. Washington's work than he intended. "I 
never planned," he says, "to give any large 
part of my life to speaking in public. I have 
always had more of an ambition to do things 
than merely to talk about doing them." But when 
the invitations came to him to speak he carried 
into this new development of his work the same 
spirit of thoroughness and of trust in divine 
guidance which had animated him from boy- 
hood. He has given some insight into the 
secret of his power as a public speaker in a few 
sentences which are well worth the meditative 
study of all who desire to influence by public 
address their fellowmen, whether from the 
pulpit or the platform. "I make it a rule," 
he says, "never to go before an audience, on 
any occasion, without asking the blessing of 
God upon what I want to say. I always make 
it a rule to make especial preparation for each 

275 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

separate address. I care little how what I am 
saying is going to sound in the newspapers, or 
to another audience, or to an individual. At 
the time, the audience before me absorbs all 
my sympathy, thought, and energy." 

In 1893, when the International Meeting of 
Christian Workers was held at Atlanta, Georgia, 
an invitation came to him at Boston to give at 
that meeting a five-minute address. It was, I 
believe, his first invitation to speak to an audi- 
ence of whites in the South. Was it worth 
while to travel so far to do so little? But was 
it little.'^ A great deal can be done by the 
right man on the right occasion in five minutes. 
In five minutes he can plant an acorn out of 
which will grow an oak. He accepted the invi- 
tation, went to Atlanta, made the five-minute 
speech, and returned to Boston. Two years 
later he was invited by telegram to accompany 
a committee from Atlanta to Washington for the 
purpose of presenting to a committee of Congress 
reasons for granting government help for an in- 
ternational exposition which was to be given in 
Atlanta in September. His speech before the 
Congressional Committee confirmed the favour- 
able impression produced by his five-minute 
speech two years before. And as the opening of 
the Exposition drew near, he was invited to de- 
liver one of the opening addresses, as a repre- 

276 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

sentatlve of the Negro race. With considerable 
hesitation, he accepted the invitation. The situa- 
tion which that acceptance created was correctly 
diagnosed by a white farmer, one of his neigh- 
bours in Tuskegee: " W^ashington," he said, "you 
have spoken before the Northern white people, 
the Negroes in the South, and to us country 
white people in the South; but in Atlanta, 
to-morrow, you will have before you the Northern 
whites, the Southern whites, and the Negroes 
all together. I am afraid that you have got 
yourself into a tight place." 

The committee gave him a perfectly free plat- 
form. "W^hen the invitation came to me, there 
was not one word of intimation as to what I 
should say or as to what I should omit." The 
public interest upon this occasion was very great. 
The public excitement was indicated by the act 
of Mr. W^illiam H. Baldwin, one of the trus- 
tees of Tuskegee Institute, and a warm personal 
friend, who "was so nervous about the kind of 
reception that I would have, and the effect that 
my speech would produce, that he could not 
persuade himself to go into the building, but 
walked back and forth in the grounds outside 
until the opening exercises were over." The 
gist of Mr. W^ashington's speech was expressed 
in one homely metaphor that went the rounds of 
the country. Rarely does a single figure re- 

277 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

ceive from so large an audience so intelligent 
and enthusiastic a response. Holding up his 
hand with his fingers extended and separated he 
cried: *'In all things that are purely social we 
can be as separate as the fingers," then closing 
the hand he continued, "yet one as the hand in 
all things essential to mutual progress." The 
sentiment was received with enthusiastic ap- 
plause in which the members of both races 
heartily joined, and the entire speech was well 
characterized subsequently in a single sentence 
by Mr. Clark Howell, the editor of the Atlanta 
Constitution: "The whole speech is a platform 
upon which blacks and whites can stand with 
full justice to each other." 

I have characterized Booker T. Washington 
as a great statesman. Perhaps to justify that 
statement the story of his life ought to be more 
fully told and the condition of the problems with 
which he dealt and of the state of public opin- 
ion upon them more fully described. Here it 
must, however, sufiice to state, however inade- 
quately, the principles which he inculcated by 
his speeches and illustrated by his action. 

He interpreted the North to the South and the 
South to the North, for he never modified his 
opinions in order to adapt them to the current 
opinion of the geographical section in which he 
was speaking. 

278 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

He interpreted the Negroes to the whites 
and the whites to the Negroes; drew sharply 
the distinction between social equality and in- 
dustrial equality; never demanded more for the 
Negro than an opportunity for self -development 
and useful service, and never conceded that 
anything less than this would be justice. 

He spent no time in discussing dead issues; but 
he unhesitatingly condemned slavery when he 
spoke of it at all, pointed out the evils it wrought 
upon the white race as upon the black race, and 
urged his own people to justify emancipation 
by demonstrating the superior value of free 
labour. 

He made no demands upon the white race to 
respect the Negro; but he pointed out to the 
Negroes how they could earn that respect, and 
this he did not only by his words, but by his 
life of unselfish and devoted labour. 

He saw no hope for the Negro in conferring 
upon him political power until he had the ca- 
pacity to use it intelligently. Looking back 
upon the past he declared his belief that it would 
have been better to make the possession of a 
certain amount of education or property, or 
both, a test for the exercise of the franchise, 
but that test should be made to apply honestly 
to both the white and the black races. In other 
words, while seldom discussing the political ques- 

279 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEIMPORARIES 

tion, he made it clear that he beheved taking 
part in the government of others is a responsi- 
bihty to be earned, not a natural right nor a 
privilege to be universally granted. 

When he began his public labours I do not 
think there was any organized industrial edu- 
cation in the nation save in exceptional cases, 
such as Hampton Institute. That we now have 
industrial education as a part of our public 
school system in every state in the Union is 
very largely due to three men far in advance of 
their times: General Armstrong, Doctor Frissell, 
and Booker Washington. 

In building the Tuskegee Institute Mr. Wash- 
ington built his own monument. Greater edu- 
cators there may have been; but it would not 
be easy to find in the history of any race the 
story of a life more Christ-like in its patient 
devotion to an unselfish cause than was his. 
This monument is a witness to the possibilities 
of the Afro- American. For the possibilities 
of a race are to be always measured, not by 
their averages but by their leaders, and Doc- 
tor Washington is a conclusive answer to the 
ignorant assertion that the Negro is incapable of 
great things. Nor is Tuskegee less a monument 
to the white people of the South. It was called 
into existence by them; received its first appro- 
priation from a Southern legislature; and so 

280 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

hearty and unanimous has been the support 
awarded to it by the community in which it is 
situated that Doctor Washington was able to 
say that he had never asked anything of his 
white neighbours which they did not cordially 
grant to him if it was in their power so to do. 
Finally, Tuskegee affords conclusive demonstra- 
tion that it is possible to unite both races in a 
common effort to promote the common welfare. 



281 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES, PEACEMAKER 

THE spirit in which General Lee and 
General Grant met at Appomattox Court 
House when, after four years of skilful 
and courageous fighting, the Southern leader 
surrendered to his chivalric antagonist, augured 
well for the early establishment of friendly rela- 
tions between the South and the North. These 
leaders truly represented their respective sec- 
tions. 

But the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 
which so quickly followed that surrender, 
wrought an almost instant revolution; it in- 
spired bitterness in the North and despair in 
the South. President Johnson combined hatred 
of the ex-slaveholder with contempt for the 
ex-slave. For four years a new political battle 
raged between the South and the North after 
the four years of military battle had ended. 
There were statesmen who welcomed Grant's 
"Let us have peace," and saw clearly how it 
could be attained. If the ex-slaveholder and 
the ex-slave were to live prosperously together 
in the same community, mutual respect and 
mutual friendship must be cultivated between 

282 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES 

them. Years of education would be needed 
to prepare the uneducated Negro for full citizen- 
ship. The burden of that education must not 
be thrown upon the South alone. Federal aid 
must be given to Southern education. But 
there were radicals of a different opinion. They 
held that . suffrage is a natural right and that 
democracy means government by the majority. 
Their policy was: "Give the Negro the ballot and 
he will take care of himself. His late masters 
will be his enemies. If he cannot protect him- 
self against them, the Federal Government must 
protect him." 

The incompetence and corruption which this 
policy inflicted on the South surpasses belief. 
James Ford Rhodes in his history of this period 
tells us that at first Southern men attempted to 
cooperate with the Republican party in re- 
building a new civilization on the ruins of that 
which slavery and war had destroyed. But they 
soon gave up the endeavour in despair. Nine 
tenths of the Republican party in the South were 
Negroes; one tenth were white; and the one 
tenth were rarely wise and not always honest. 
The inevitable effect of this policy on the Re- 
publican party Henry Ward Beecher foretold 
in a graphic figure. "The radicals," he said 
to me once, "are trying to drive the wedge into 
the log butt-end foremost, and they'll only split 

283 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

their beetle." This they did. By the second 
term of Grant's administration the RepubUcan 
party existed in two bitterly hostile factions. 
Meanwhile, the corruption which the radicals had 
unwittingly fastened on the South returned to 
plague the North. A successful war is almost 
inevitably followed by corruption. Germany 
suffered more from her victory in the Franco- 
Prussian War than France suffered from her 
defeat. The most corrupt period in our national 
history was that which followed the Civil War. 
It was the period of the carpet-bag government 
in the Southern states, of the Tweed Ring in 
New York State, of the Credit Mobilier in the 
Federal Government. The most corrupt elec- 
tion in our history was that which followed the 
second term of General Grant. Charges of in- 
timidation, of fraudulent registration, of flagrant 
bribery, were preferred by each party against the 
other and were substantiated by indubitable 
evidence. 

When the election was over, it was very doubt- 
ful who had been elected. Threats of civil war 
were freely made by partizans; fears of civil war 
were seriously entertained by men behind the 
scenes. It was solemnly affirmed that 145,000 
well-disciplined troops were ready to fight to 
seat the Democratic candidate. An army of 
men not disciplined and not organized, who had 

284 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES 

been thrown out of employment by one of the 
worst panics that ever struck the American 
market, were beHeved to be ready for a cam- 
paign of pUmder. Three circumstances con- 
spired to w^ard off the danger: the assurance that 
General Grant would use all the resources of the 
Nation to preserve order; the dread of civil war 
by a generation just emerging from one; and the 
poise of both the Presidential candidates who 
showed equal anxiety to secure a peaceable de- 
cision of the issue. 

In the election Mr. Hayes had taken no such 
active part as has now become the fashion of 
Presidential candidates. In the post-election 
controversy his influence is indicated by a letter 
he wrote to Senator Sherman at New Orleans: 
"We are not to allow our friends to defeat one 
outrage and fraud by another. There must be 
nothing crooked on our part. Let Mr. Tilden 
have the place by violence, intimidation, and 
fraud, rather than undertake to prevent it by 
means that will not bear the severest scrutiny." 
Finally, by an almost unanimous consent, a 
tribunal was created to determine the issue; and 
when this tribunal, by a majority of one, de- 
clared Mr. Hayes duly elected, the decision was 
accepted by the Congress and by the country — 
sullenly, but still accepted. To this day history is 
doubtful whether this decision was right or wrong. 

285 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

When Mr. Hayes was inaugurated President 
in March, 1877, the conditions that confronted 
him were these: 

He held his office with a clouded title. More 
than half of the white citizens of the United States 
believed that he had not been constitutionally 
elected; less than half the voters had voted for 
him. He was called to administer the govern- 
ment over a nation divided not more by the 
Civil War than by the undemocratic recon- 
struction policy, the effect of which had been 
to incite jealousy and suspicion between the 
sections and hostility between the races. Cor- 
ruption in local, state, and national govern- 
ments had brought government into contempt, 
given to the term "politician" an odious meaning, 
destroyed some reputations and besmirched 
others. During the first two years of his term 
the Democrats had a majority in the House; 
during the last two years a majority in both 
House and Senate. And he had the hesitating 
and reluctant support of a divided party and 
the bitter hostility of some of its most influential 
and prominent leaders. During his stormy 
administration he never lost his temper, never 
answered abuse with abuse, never sacrificed 
principle to policy, never fought fire with fire, 
retained the respect of his friends in defeat and 
compelled the respect of his enemies in victory. 

286 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES 

At the very beginning of his administration 
he foreshadowed his break with the " Old Guard " 
of his day by the personnel of his Cabinet, se- 
lected upon the following simple principles, 
stated in his diary: 

1. A new Cabinet. 

2. No Presidential candidate. 

3. No appointment to "take care" of any- 
body. 

Seven weeks later he emphasized the break 
by abandoning military rule in the South. In 
both Louisiana and South Carolina were two 
state governments — one Republican, the other 
Democratic. He withdrew the Federal troops 
from both states, and in both states the Re- 
publican governments collapsed. The wrath 
of the militant Repubhcans was unbounded. 
To them this was a surrender to "unrepentant 
rebels." His reply to the fierce invectives in the 
Senate was confided to his diary, which was dumb. 
"My policy," he wrote, "is trust, peace, and to 
put aside the bayonet, I do not think that the 
wise policy is to decide contested elections in the 
State by the use of the National army." 

In his inaugural address he declared that a 
thorough, radical, and complete reform in our 
civil service was a paramount necessity. He 
emphasized this conviction by removing two of 
Senator Conkling's wards from the Custom House 

^87 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

in New York. The Senate rejected his nomina- 
tion of their successors, and Conkhng's wards 
held over. "I am right," said Mr. Hayes to his 
diary, "and shall not give up the fight." He did 
not. A year later his nominations were renewed 
and confirmed. His withdrawal of troops from 
the South had made Blaine his enemy; his re- 
moval of Conkling's appointees made Conkling 
his enemy. Mr. Conkling had no use for what 
he called "snivel service reform." The Presi- 
dent confided to his silent diary the political 
principle which compelled his course. "I stand," 
he wrote, "for the equal and Constitutional inde- 
pendence of the Executive. The independence 
of the difiFerent departments of the Government 
is essential to the progress and existence of good 
government." 

A plan to increase the money of the country 
and lower the standard by remonetizing silver 
he vetoed. Democrats and Republicans, re- 
sponding to a popular demand, reinforced 
undoubtedly by silver-mine owners and silver- 
producing states, were able to overrule the 
President's veto. In the tangle of that hour, 
when financiers were themselves perplexed, Mr. 
Hayes gave to his diary in a sentence the con- 
clusion to which years after the whole country 
came: "I cannot consent to a measure which 
stains our credit." 

288 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES 

The Democratic party attached a rider to the 
Appropriation Bill which would have made it 
impossible for the President to fulfil the duty 
laid upon him by the Constitution and preserve 
order in the States if necessity should arise. 
The President called an extra session, laid the 
facts before Congress and the country in a mes- 
sage so short that busy men could read it, so 
simple that men unskilled in politics could under- 
stand it, and so free from combativeness that par- 
tizans could not complain of it, and then waited 
for Congress to hear from the country and retire 
from its impossible position; and this it did, after 
a long controversy with the patient President. 

Men will face a lion who will flee from a swarm 
of bees. So men will face a political cabal who 
will hesitate to challenge social conventions by 
disregarding a long-established social custom. 
Mr. and Mrs. Hayes had never served wine on 
their home table. They resolved to carry their 
habit of abstinence into their new home in the 
White House. Their action aroused a thunder- 
storm of criticism — lightning that did not strike 
and thunder that did not terrify. The criticism 
took on every variety from the good-natured 
hon mot of Mr. Evarts: "At the President's re- 
ception water flowed like champagne" to the 
irritating accusation of a disappointed office- 
seeker that what made the President a total ab- 

289 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

stainer was his parsimony. The only serious 
argument advanced against his course was that 
as host of the nation he should in his hospitality 
represent the sentiment of the nation. It 
proved a boomerang. For presently the White 
House was deluged with letters, telegrams, 
resolutions, thank-offerings of flowers, from 
every section of the country. Only a very small 
number of Americans served wine on their 
tables; the President was conforming the 
hospitality of the White House to the habits of 
the American people. His action was the more 
significant because he had not been a strict total 
abstainer before his election, and he never was 
a prohibitionist. As his biographer has given 
to the world his statement of his views of this 
subject as they were communicated to his father 
confessor, the diary, I violate no confidence by 
giving to my readers his definition of them in the 
following letter to me: 

Private 

Fremont, O. 
22 Sept., 1880. 

Rev. Lyman Abbott 

N.Y. 
Dear Sir: 

Your note of the 16th instant is before me. With very 
decided opinions as to the value of "temperance legis- 
lation" I am yet persuaded that their publication would, 
if any attention was given to them, provoke profitless 

290 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES 

controversy. Certain experiments must, as I see it, be 
tried before there will be any general concurrence of senti- 
ment among the sincere friends of the cause. The ten- 
dency to division and discord is already so strong that I 
am averse to doing anything which will add to it. The 
true agencies for good in this work, as I look at the sub- 
ject, are example, education, discussion, and the influences 

of religion. 

Sincerely, 
R. B. Hayes. 

I met President Hayes personally twice. 
Once during his Presidency, in company with 
Governor and Mrs. Claflin and Mr. and Mrs. 
Lawson Valentine, I spent an evening at the 
White House as quietly as if we had been in a 
rural home ten miles from a railway station. 
The President's "shop" was by common con- 
sent excluded. Politics were not discussed. 
One incident I recall: the President took me 
upstairs to show me his children asleep in the 
nursery. I had two boys of about their age at 
home; and for a few moments our fatherly pride 
and our fatherly love united us in a very sacred 
fellowship. 

The other incident was later. After his re- 
tirement from the Presidency he was elected 
president of the Prison Reform Association. 
At its annual meeting in Saratoga — I forget the 
year — I was preacher and took as my text: "If 
thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give 

291 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

him driiik," and as my theme the doctrine that 
the only justice that the state can rightly ad- 
minister is a merciful justice and the only pun- 
ishment it can rightly inflict is a reformatory 
punishment. After the service the President, with 
a cordiality that was more than official, requested 
the sermon for publication, and it was printed 
from the stenographer's notes. He gave ex- 
pression — I think subsequently to the Saratoga 
meeting, but I am not sure — to the same prin- 
ciple in a characteristically well-balanced state- 
ment: 

The chief aim in the treatment of convicts is to protect 
society against its avowed enemy, the criminal. The 
advocates of improved prisons and prison discipHne add 
to this a more specific statement. They would reform 
all criminals whom they can reform by wise systems wisely 
administered. Those who cannot be reclaimed should 
remain under sentence of conviction where they can sup- 
port themselves by labour and do no harm to society. 

The principles laid down by Mr. Thomas Mott 
Osborne in "Behind Prison Bars," and illus- 
trated by his own prison administration, are all 
implied in this statement of President Hayes, 
made some forty years ago. 

President Hayes did not heal the wounds in- 
flicted by war and by a misconceived policy of 
reconstruction, but he set the broken bones, and 

292 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES 

Time is knitting together again the North and 
the South; he did not solve the race problem, but 
he did much to create that era of good feeling 
which has enabled the best men in both races 
to understand each other and to cooperate in 
movements for their mutual welfare; he did not 
accomplish the purification of government, but 
he did give a new impulse to that movement for 
political purity carried forward subsequently 
by his successors in office, preeminently by 
Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt, 
until "A public office is a public trust" has come 
to be recognized, at least in theory, as a sound po- 
litical principle; he did not succeed in wdiolly pre- 
venting the endeavour to give us all plenty of 
money by making it cheap, but he halted that 
proceeding and gave the sober second thought of 
the American people time to develop and assert 
itself; he did not fall into the error of thinking 
that a people will be made temperate if they are 
prohibited from drinking, but his example did 
more than perhaps w^e know toward cultivating 
in the nation a habit of total abstinence from 
intoxicating liquors which laid the foundation for 
national prohibition. 

During Mr. Hayes's Presidency I, an editor, 
was studying and interpreting current history. 
My admiration for Mr. Hayes steadily grew 
while he was making history. I admired his 

293 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

masterful conscience, his gentle strength, his 
non-combative courage, his unconquerable pa- 
tience. I admired him for the men he brought 
about him as his counsellors and for the success 
he achieved against great odds. And when I 
planned this series of "Silhouettes of my Con- 
temporaries,"! eagerly embraced the opportunity 
it gave me to sketch the portrait of a states- 
man whose character and difficulties the country 
too little realized then and whose service the 
country has too little appreciated since. Both 
are indicated by the title I have ventured to 
give to him: Rutherford B. Hayes — Peace- 
maker. 



294 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, LABOUR LEADER 

OF COURSE I cannot give a portrait of 
the greatest statesman of his time in a 
score of pages. But these are not por- 
traits: they are silhouettes, shadow pictures, 
faded photographs, half-awakened memories of 
impressions left on the mind of an octogenarian 
by some of his contemporaries. Some of them 
I knew intimately, some of them personally not 
at all, not one of them gave me a sitting. Not 
one of them did I sketch at the time. But all 
of them I studied. Their places and current 
history I endeavour to discern ; the divine mean- 
ing of their lives I endeavour to read. 

William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, John C. 
Fremont, General David Hunter, all attempted 
to be emancipators. But none of them saw what 
Abraham Lincoln saw so clearly, that slavery 
was an unjust form of labour and that any form 
of so-called free labour, if dominated by the 
same spirit of greed, was also unjust. He was 
the first, and still remains the greatest, American 
Labour leader. 

In 1856 Buchanan defeated John C. Fre- 
mont for the Presidency. The election took 

295 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

place in November; I was not of age until 
December. Therefore, I could not vote. But 
I could do the work of an enthusiastic boy in the 
campaign, and I did. Fremont's defeat was 
a disappointment, but not a discouragement. 
The pitiable affair of Buchanan's administration 
added unnumbered recruits to the Republican 
party, and converted the party enthusiasm of 
the previous campaigners into a religious en- 
thusiasm. I was never an admirer of Seward; 
he was too canny. I had no use for Stephen 
Douglas; I think better of him now than I did 
then. I had barely heard of Abraham Lincoln. 
In those days "the Wild and Woolly West" was a 
long way off from New York City. And when 
in 1860 he lectured in Cooper Union I managed 
to get a ticket. I was then in my twenty-fourth 
year. 

The city was not pro-slavery, but it was anti- 
abolition and anti-agitation. King Cotton ruled 
the market place, the press, the schools, the 
churches. There was a conspiracy of silence. 
Everybody said, "Hush!" No! Not every- 
body. There were voices of protest here and 
there: from a merchant, a lawyer, a newspaper, 
a clergyman. The violence of some of these 
protests intensified the general apprehension. 
An opinion quite commonly entertained was ex- 
pressed with uncommon clearness and courage 

296 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

by Charles O'Connor, a leader of the New York 
bar, who said of slavery : 

It is fit and proper; it is in its own nature, as an insti- 
tution, beneficial to both races; and the effect of this as- 
sertion is not diminished by our admitting that many faults 
are practised under it. 

But faint echoes of the Lincoln-Douglas 
debates, in Illinois, had crossed the continent. 
Curiosity, but not conscience, was aroused. 
Cooper Union was packed with an expectant 
audience which had come, much as the audience 
on Mars Hill went to hear St. Paul, not hostile, 
not sympathetic, simply curious. I recall the 
scene, and as I describe the present faded picture, 
I wonder how far it truly portrays the reality — 
the hushed expectancy of the audience, the orator 
on the platform, a tall figure, ungainly but 
erect, virile, with no trace of that slouchiness 
which tradition attributes to him, a homely face 
but a compelling presence , a carrying voice easily 
heard but never vociferous, little movement, few 
gestures, no stories, no jests, no pictures, no 
concessions to prejudice, but no scorn and no 
invective — simply a calm, direct, unanswerable 
appeal to the reason and the conscience. "If 
slavery is right," he said, "there is nothing 
that the South asks of us which we ought not 
to grant. If slavery is wrong we have no right 

297 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

to permit its establishment in territories under 
our control." 

That is the sum and substance of his speech as 
it remains in my mind to-day, sixty-one years 
after it was delivered. And I went out, as did 
hundreds of others, that night from that meeting 
an enthusiastic disciple and follower of Abraham 
Lincoln. The faith in him then inspired never 
weakened in the darkest days of the Civil War. 
I sometimes doubted what the issue of that war 
would be, but never for a moment doubted that it 
was a righteous war. There were pacifists then as 
there have been more recently ; but the lesson I then 
learned I never forgot. It is eternally true that 
there is something better than Peace: — Justice. 

In this sketch I had written thus far in my bed- 
room in the early morning, rising before light in an 
endeavour to preserve the picture as it came to me 
in the night, before the life of the day had obscured 
it. Since then I have compared my recollection 
of the speech with the oflScial report in the vol- 
umes of Abraham Lincoln's speeches and letters, 
and have found that I have stated, almost in the 
words of the great American prophet, the conclu- 
sions to which in that ever-memorable address he 
sought to lead his audience. 

After his election preparations for secession 
were carried on by the aggressive and determined 

298 



I 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

advocates of a new Southern empire founded on 
slavery as its corner stone. Some men were 
cajoled by an elusive dream of political am- 
bition; some were coerced by fear of a civil war. 
Before Mr. Lincoln's inauguration seven South- 
ern states had formally adopted ordinances of 
secession. In the North lovers of the Union, 
lovers of peace, yes, and lovers of liberty, fearing 
that a dissolution of the Union would be the 
death knell of liberty throughout the world, united 
in an endeavour to find some compromise be- 
tween right and wrong. Political enemies as- 
sailed, political friends besought; but Mr. Lincoln 
never hesitated, never wavered, never said a 
word nor did an act incongruous with that 
simple and fundamental declaration: If slavery 
is right let us concede everything; if slavery is 
wrong there is nothing we can concede. 

His first inaugural included a pathetic appeal 
to his dissatisfied fellow-countrymen: "You 
have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the 
government, while I shall have the most solemn 
one to ^preserve, protect and defend it.'" When 
the war broke upon the country he met it with 
the same faith in righteousness and a God of 
righteousness. When General David Hunter 
attempted to abolish slavery in a state occupied 
by his troops, Mr. Lincoln reversed the General's 
action. When it became clear to him and he 

299 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORAEIES 

could make it clear to the nation that slavery 
was aiding the assailants of the nation and that 
its abolition would weaken them, he proclaimed 
emancipation as a war measure. When, as the 
war drew toward its close, semi-official propo- 
sitions for peace were made to him he replied 
that "The war will cease on the part of the 
Government whenever it shall have ceased on the 
part of those who began it"; and he repeated 
and re-repeated that three things were indis- 
pensable to peace : the restoration of the national 
authority throughout all the States, the ac- 
ceptance of the Emancipation Proclamation, 
and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the 
Government. When after more than three years 
of war had passed and discouraged Democrats 
were beginning to affirm that it was a failure, 
and discouraged Republicans were looking about 
for new issues and a new leader, Lincoln met 
growing discontent by the affirmation "While 
I remain in my present position I shall not at- 
tempt to retract or modify the Emancipation 
Proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any 
person who is free by the terms of that proc- 
lamation, nor by any of the acts of Congress. 
If the people should, by whatever mode or 
means, make it an executive duty to re-enslave 
such persons, another, and not I, must be their 
instrument to perform it." And when he was 

300 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

reelected by an overwhelming majority his 
second inaugural repeated with a saddened but 
unwavering heart the principles of his pre- 
election speech: "With malice toward none; with 
charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God 
gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish 
the work we are in; to bind up the nation's 
wounds; to care for him who shall have borne 
the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — 
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just 
and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all 
nations." 

Throughout the Civil War Mr. Lincoln was 
subject to violent criticism, sometimes honest, 
sometimes unscrupulous from two opposite 
quarters. The radical anti-slavery men of the 
East, especially of New England, criticized 
him for not initiating at once a policy of 
emancipation. Conservatives in the great com- 
mercial cities and in the Middle West criticized 
him for the policy of emancipation and for re- 
fusing proposals for compromise. Mr. Lincoln 
disregarded both groups of critics and seldom 
replied to either group. They both wanted him 
to govern; he believed and consistently acted 
on the belief that the people were to govern and 
that he was elected to carry out their will. The 
party which had elected him was pledged to 
maintain the Union and neither to interfere with 

301 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

slavery in the States nor to allow it in the Terri- 
tories, and to carry out that policy they had 
elected a man who had declared in no uncertain 
terms his hostility to slavery as essentially and 
absolutely wrong. From the fulfilment of that 
pledge Mr. Lincoln never varied; for the method 
of its fulfilment he waited until he could lead 
the will of the people to the measure which he 
saw to be necessary. 

During the Civil War I was pastor of a Congre- 
gational church in Terre Haute, Indiana, and, 
born and brought up in the East, could under- 
stand the public sentiment both of the Eastern 
and the Mid-Western states. There was prob- 
ably no Northern state in which there was less 
anti-slavery sentiment and more anti-abolition 
sentiment than in Indiana. I believed then, 
as I believe now, that the President was right in 
waiting until he could educate a national senti- 
ment which would justify emancipation. When 
the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, it 
was the act of the American people, though 
President Lincoln held the pen with which it was 
signed. It was this fact which gave to that 
Proclamation its efficiency. 

In May, 1860, the Congregational Association 
of Indiana passed resolutions urging the better 
observance of the Sabbath and protesting against 
its too-prevalent desecration, but saying nothing 

302 






ABRAHAJVI LINCOLN 

concerning slavery. A year later they passed 
resolutions condemning slavery as antagonistic 
to humanity, to the Gospel, "and to those prin- 
ciples of liberty which underlie our nation." 
Three years later, when the proposals for peace 
founded upon compromise with the South were 
about to be passed upon by the nation, the 
same Association condemned compromise and 
approved immediate universal and irrevocable 
emancipation and the employment of coloured 
troops in the army and navy as national soldiers. 
The difference between these three sets of reso- 
lutions affords a fair indication of the progress 
of public sentiment in the nation under Abraham 
Lincoln's leadership toward the principles af- 
firmed by him in his Cooper-Union speech. 

That I can remember after sixty years and 
restate with almost verbal accuracy the funda- 
mental principles of Mr. Lincoln's Cooper-Union 
speech; that the only references to slavery in the 
resolutions of the Congregational Association 
of Indiana in 1861 were introduced by me as 
amendments to the resolutions formulated by the 
Committee on Resolutions; and that, accepting 
Mr. Lincoln's fundamental belief that slavery 
was only a part of the labour question when 
slavery was abolished, I devoted myself, in the 
pulpit, on the platform, and in the press to the 
propagation of his principles of Industrial Democ- 

303 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

racy, are indications of the influence which he 
had upon the mind and the conscience of one of 
his fellow-citizens. 

We may be sure that the same faith in right- 
eousness and a God of righteousness would in- 
spire Abraham Lincoln in his counsels to the 
nation in its present perplexity. There may be 
some doubt what policy he would advise concern- 
ing our international problems, but it is certain 
that he would not put " safety first," and that he 
would advise both against our assuming re- 
sponsibilities for the government of the Euro- 
pean States and against evasion of responsibilities 
which the God of history has, by the course of 
events, laid upon us. 

And we can be in no doubt as to what would 
be his position on the labour question. For the 
principles which ought to guide our action have 
been very explicitly though briefly indicated in his 
speeches and by his acts. 

To report at length his utterance directly or 
by necessary implication bearing on the labour 
problem of to-day would take me far beyond the 
limits of this brief sketch. It must suflfice here 
to point out briefly the direction in which his 
principles and his spirit make for the solution 
of what is perhaps now the most perplexing and 
difficult problem for the human race to solve. 
But that the slavery question was one phase of 

304 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the labour question, Mr. Lincoln declared in 
explicit terms. "The existing rebellion," he 
wrote to a committee from the Working Men's 
Association of New York, "is, in fact, a war upon 
the rights of all working people." And in de- 
scribing his own experience he identified him- 
self with working men and made that experience 
illustrate and enforce the lesson which he wished 
to impress upon them. He said: 

"I am not ashamed to confess that twenty-five years 
ago I was a hired labourer mending rails, at work on a 
flatboat — just what might happen to a poor man's son. I 
want every man to have the chance — and I believe a black 
man is entitled to it— in which he can better his condition, 
when he may look forward and hope to be a hired labourer 
this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and 
finally hire men to work for him. That is the true 
system. . . . Then you can better your condition, 
and so it may go on and on in one ceaseless round so long 
as man exists on the face of the earth." 

We may be sure that he who never denounced 
the slaveholder, who never did anything to 
intensify the prejudice of the South against the 
North or the North against the South, would 
enter into no class war, would never denounce 
the rich to the poor or the poor to the rich. 

He who told the farmers of Wisconsin that the 
reason why there were more attempts to flatter 
them than any other class was because they could 

305 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

cast more votes, but that to his thinking they 
were neither better nor worse than other people, 
would never flatter the mechanic class to win 
for himself or his party a labour vote. 

He who in 1864 held with working men that 
*'the strongest bond of human sympathy out- 
side of the family relation should be one uniting 
all working people of all nations and tongues and 
kindreds" would not condemn labour unions. 

He who at the same time said to them, "Let 
not him who is houseless pull down the house of 
another, but let him work diligently and build 
one for himself," would condemn all lawless acts 
of violence whether against the employer of 
labour or against the non-union labourer who 
is employed. 

He who thanked God that we have a system 
of labour where there can be a strike — a point 
where the working man may stop working — would 
not deny this right to the working man of to-day. 

He who said in 1860, "I don't believe in a law 
to prevent a man from getting rich, and I do 
believe in allowing the humblest man an equal 
chance to get rich with any one else," would have 
found, not in war upon the wealthy, but in 
equal opportunity for all, the remedy for social 
and industrial inequalities. 

He who condemned the mudsill theory, the 
theory that labour and education are incom- 

306 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

patible and that "a blind horse upon a treadmill 
is a perfect illustration of what a labourer should 
be, all the better for being blind so that he could 
not kick understandingly," would be the earnest 
advocate of child labour laws and industrial 
education. 

He who argued that "As the Author of man 
makes every individual with one head and one 
pair of hands it was probably intended that 
heads and hands should cooperate as friends, 
and that that particular head should direct and 
control that pair of hands," would believe in 
cooperation between Labour and Capital, leading 
on to the time when labourers should become 
capitalists and capitalists should become labour- 
ers. 

He who held in 1854 that "The legitimate 
object of government is to do for the people what 
needs to be done, but which they cannot by 
individual effort do at all or do so well for them- 
selves," would neither believe in the night- 
watchman theory of government which allows 
it to do nothing but police duty, nor in the social- 
istic theory of government which leaves nothing 
for individual effort to do for itself. 

Two systems of industry are to-day proposed 
to the American people for adoption. 

One proposes to destroy capitalism by sub- 
stituting for the despotism of capital the despo- 

307 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

tism of the proletariat. It has been recently 
stated by Lenin in the following paragraph: 

Any leader of Marx who fails to understand that so long 
as Capitalist society exists every serious conflict between 
the classes will eventuate either in an exclusive dictator- 
ship of the Bourgeoisie or an exclusive dictatorship of a 
proletariat, shows his incapacity to understand either the 
economic or the political reasoning of our great leader. 

The other plan proposes to destroy capitalism 
by making it possible for every intelligent, in- 
dustrious, able-bodied citizen to become a capi- 
talist. It was defined by Abraham Lincoln with 
great clearness in his first Annual INIessage and 
to that statement he attached such importance 
that he repeated it two years and a half later in 
his letter to the Working Men's Association of 
New York: 

Labour is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital 
is only the fruit of labour, and could never have existed if 
labour had not first existed. Labour is the superior of 
capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. 
Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as 
any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and prob- 
ably always will be, a relation between labour and capital 
producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that 
the whole labour of the community exists within that re- 
lation. . . . There is not, of necessity, any such thing 
as the free hired labourer being fixed to that condition for 
life. Many independent men everywhere in these States 

308 




ABRAHMI LINCOLN 

a few years back in their lives were hired labourers. The 
prudent, penniless beginner in the world labours for wages 
awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools and land 
for himself, then labours on his own account another while, 
and at length hires another new beginner to help him. 
This is the just and generous and prosperous system which 
opens the way to all — gives hope to all, and consequent 
energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. 

What is the choice of the American people.? 
Do they prefer Communism or Industrial De- 
mocracy? The life and teaching of Abraham 
Lincoln make perfectly clear his answer to that 
question, and they point out the successive steps 
which labour leaders and captains of industry 
must take to reach the goal which he commends 
to them. For this reason I count Abraham Lin- 
coln America's greatest Labour Leader. 



309 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT, PREACHER OF 
RIGHTEOUSNESS 

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT was reading a 
part of one of his messages to a group of 
his friends whose advice he desired. Sud- 
denly he stopped at the conclusion of a para- 
graph with the self-criticism: "I suppose my 
critics will call that preaching. But I have got 
such a bully pulpit." Yes ! He did have a great 
pulpit, and he was a great preacher. 

His greatest service to the world was not his 
initiation of a policy of National Conservation, 
nor the Russo-Japanese Peace, nor the Panama 
Canal — great as were these services. He did more 
than any other public man in our history, more 
even than Abraham Lincoln or Grover Cleve- 
land, to transform politics from a corrupt 
traffic to a public service. He habitually acted 
on Grover Cleveland's motto: "A public office 
is a public trust." And he inspired the younger 
men of his generation with the faith of Ruther- 
ford B. Hayes that he serves his party best who 
best serves his country. The professional poli- 
ticians of the Reconstruction Period had brought 
politics into disrepute. In my early manhood 

310 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

to take any active part in political life was to 
invite suspicion; the affirmation: *"! take no in- 
terest in politics" was a common boast. One 
of the popular arguments against suffrage for 
women was that to take part in political activity 
would degrade them. The day of Webster and 
Clay had passed, the day of Blaine and Conkling 
and Piatt had come. President Hayes had se- 
cured in his cabinet men equally eminent for 
their integrity and their ability, and had main- 
tained civil-service reform in his administration 
in spite of the efforts of Blaine and Conkling; 
but he could not be re-nominated. That to-day 
American political life appeals to young men 
as a career worthy of their ambition is largely 
due to two men — Grover Cleveland and Theo- 
dore Roosevelt. 

Mr. Roosevelt's most striking intellectual char- 
acteristics were clearness of vision and energy in 
action. His critics thought him to be impulsive. 
If impulsiveness means acting first and thinking 
afterwards, Mr. Roosevelt was not impulsive. He 
never leaped before he looked; but it did not 
take him long to look. His was the most alert 
nature I have ever known. He was quick to 
perceive, quick to decide, quick to act. Having 
his cooperation in the Outlook for five years and 
meeting him in editorial conference almost every 
week when he was at home, I had some oppor- 

311 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEIVIPORARIES 

tunity of becoming acquainted with his methods 
and habits. He always listened with respect to 
the opinions of the youngest of our staff. He was 
always ready to give the reason for his own 
opinion. And he was always ready to reconsider 
that opinion if any one had new light to throw 
upon the question. But I never knew him to 
take counsel of his prejudices, his passions, or his 
self-interest. He was a member of our staff 
during the Progressive Campaign, when he was 
a Presidential candidate in perhaps the most 
heated political campaign of our country subse- 
quent to the Civil War. Never once did he even 
remotely suggest the question, what effect might 
any proposed utterance of the Outlook have 
upon his political fortunes; I do not think he 
ever once suggested the question, what effect 
might it have on the fortunes of the Progressive 
party. The three questions which apparently 
controlled him were : What is truth ? How much 
of that truth can we get across to the readers of 
the Outlook? How can that best be done.'^ 

There were two reasons for the widespread im- 
pression that Mr. Roosevelt acted impulsively. 

I frequently play solitaire as a brain rest, and 
I recommend the game to the brain-weary. In 
playing I have to study the relation of each card 
on the table to the other cards and take time 
to determine what my play shall be. Similarly, 

312 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

if a complicated question is put before me, I 
must take time to consider the relations of 
its various elements before coming to a decision. 
I should be ill fitted to be the editor of a daily 
paper. Mr. Roosevelt saw at a glance all the 
cards on the table, all the elements of any com- 
plicated problem put before him. Was it a 
national problem ? What would be the effect of 
the proposed legislation on the working classes, 
on the employing classes, on the shippers, on the 
middlemen, on the purchasing classes, on Con- 
gress and on the party whose support was 
necessary to secure the legislation.^ Was it an 
international problem ? What would be the effect 
of the proposed policy on our friendly relations 
with other nations .^^ — On England .^^ On France.^ 
On Italy .^^ On Japan .^^ To me the various ele- 
ments of such a complicated problem are often 
like the dissevered portions of a picture puzzle: it 
takes me some time to see their relations to each 
other. Mr. Roosevelt generally seemed to see 
them instantly in their real relations; to see at 
once the completed picture. And all the re- 
sources of his past experiences and his various 
reading — and he was a rapid and omnivorous 
reader — were all pigeon-holed and indexed in a 
well-ordered mind; and memory, like a well- 
trained private secretary, was ready to hand out 
to him whatever fact he needed. 

313 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

The other characteristic was his habitual 
reference of special questions to certain fixed 
principles by which he had previously deter- 
mined to be governed. To illustrate: If he 
had occasion to deal with a great organization 
he would deal with whatever representative 
that organization had selected. If as President, 
he had to deal with England, he would deal with 
the English Ambassador; if with Germany, 
with the German Ambassador, That he had no 
liking for the ambassador, or even no faith in 
him, made no difference. So if he had to deal 
with Pennsylvania or with New York, he dealt 
with Mr. Quay or with Mr. Piatt. Whether he 
liked them or disliked them, whether he had 
faith in them or distrusted them, made to him no 
difference. Acting upon the same principle, if 
he had to deal with the Republican party, he 
dealt with the leaders of that party and appealed 
from the leaders to the rank and file only as a 
last resort. Following his election as governor 
I was invited to the Executive Mansion at 
Albany to spend the night. He had invited 
some of the younger members of the newly 
elected Assembly to meet him in the evening. 
At the beginning of the conference, he said to 
them something like this: "If you have come 
to Albany to represent the interests of your 
district, I shall always be glad to see you and 

314 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

consult with you; if any of you have come here 
to do the bidding of your boss I care no more to 
consult with you than with any other kind of 
cattle. I prefer to consult directly with your 
boss." 

I am not here considering whether Mr. 
Roosevelt's principle was right or wrong, though, 
personally, I think it right. I am only trying 
here to point out to my readers one of the reasons 
why he was able to decide many questions so 
promptly. He had practically decided them 
beforehand by his adoption of a general prin- 
ciple to which all questions of a certain class 
could be instantly referred. 

I have sometimes dissented from Mr. Roose- 
velt's quick decision of a question and been some- 
times inclined to criticize what at first seemed 
to me his impulsive action. But when I have 
given to the problem the deliberate study which 
my temper requires, I have come either to the 
conclusion that Mr. Roosevelt was correct or else 
that the difference between us was less than I 
had thought it to be. When he ordered the 
discharge of the Brownsville soldiers, some of 
them for riotous conduct, others for sympathy 
with it, I thought he had acted rashly. I went 
to the Law Library, spent a morning in in- 
vestigation of the authorities, and came to the 
conclusion that he had acted fully within his 

315 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

constitutional and legal powers and was fully 
sustained by military precedents. Later, tak- 
ing up the official reports, I could come to no 
other conclusion than that he was equally sus- 
tained by the facts; and this was the result, as 
the reader will remember, reached by the United 
States Senate after three or four official investi- 
gations. He opposed the Arbitration Treaty 
negotiated by the Taft Administration. I sup- 
ported that treaty. His views and mine were 
both given to the readers of the Outlook in its 
pages. But when our views were compared, 
we found the difference amounted simply to 
this : We both agreed that the new treaty could 
accomplish nothing more for peace than the 
treaty which it supplanted. He was opposed 
to it because it assumed to do what it could not 
do. I should have opposed negotiating it; 
but, as it had been negotiated, I thought its 
adoiptio>i could do no harm and might do a little 
good, and that its rejection could do no good 
and might do a little harm. I do not recall a 
single important instance in which my slowly 
formed opinion has differed from his almost in- 
stantaneous decision more widely than in the 
case of the Arbitration Treaty. 

The charge was made against Mr. Roose- 
velt in 1912 by so wise a man as Mr. Eliot, 
President Emeritus of Harvard University, 

316 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

that: "The candidate of the Progressive party 
has shown himself capable while in power of 
taking grave public action — which, of course, 
seemed to him wise and right — in disregard of 
constitutional and legal limitations." This 
charge has been often made, and the friends 
of Mr. Roosevelt have often called for specifi- 
cations of it; but the specifications have never 
been given. We have never been told what 
specific clause of the Constitution or what 
specific provision of law he ever disregarded 
by any act. In fact, during his long executive 
life as Governor of New York State and Presi- 
dent of the United States, no act of Mr. Roose- 
velt's and no legislation which he has recom- 
mended has ever been declared unconstitutional 
by the courts, and I do not think that any 
administrative act of his as Civil Service Com- 
missioner, Police Commissioner, and Assistant 
Secretary of the Navy was ever set aside by his 
superior officers because by it he transcended 
the limits of his legal authority. So much as 
to his supposed impulsiveness. 

The most striking moral characteristic of Mr. 
Roosevelt was his passion for righteousness. 

The occasions which excite a man's anger 
afford an excellent indication of his character. 
He may be slow to express his admiration, but 
in anger expression is apt to come before re- 

317 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

flection. As from the heat of water bubbhng 
to the surface in a spring one perceives the 
underground heat, so from the fire that flashes 
from the eye or the hot words that leap from the 
lips one perceives the passion beneath the sur- 
face. One need not look at the catalogue for 
the title of Hogarth's famous picture "The 
Distressed Musician" : the angry face which looks 
out upon the babel of sounds that issue from 
the London street is unmistakably that of one 
keenly sensitive to discord. 

Theodore Roosevelt was extraordinarily pa- 
tient — except with injustice. That he never 
could endure. Whether the injustice was against 
himself or against others made no difference. 
Whether the evil it inflicted was little or great, 
whether it was perpetrated by an individual, a 
group, or a nation, made little difference. It was 
the wrong, not the consequences of the wrong, 
which inflamed his resentment. It might be a 
cowboy in his employ putting the Roosevelt 
brand on a calf that had strayed from its owner's 
herd; it might be Colombia which endeavoured 
by one and the same transaction to cheat France 
and blackmail America — his wrath was irrepres- 
sible and its expression in action instantaneous 
and efficient. The cowboy could not comprehend 
the reason for his instant discharge; and there 
were statesmen and editors who could not under- 

318 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

stand the instant recognition of Panama's inde- 
pendence. Both the cowboy and the critics were 
insensitive to injustice if it promised to succeed. 

To those who cannot understand the divine 
command, "Abhor that which is evil," the 
statement that Mr. Roosevelt's passionate re- 
sentment of injustice was the secret of his poise 
will seem incomprehensible. Nevertheless, the 
statement is true. He was equally indignant 
at the mob which hanged a defenseless Negro 
without giving him a trial and at the Negro 
troop which ran amuck through a peaceful 
Southern town; equally indignant at the denial 
of the right of every man to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness, whether the denial came 
from a labour union or from a modern feudal 
overlord. If he were living with us now, he 
would be equally ready to condemn Bolshevism 
and to condemn the autocracy which has by its 
oppression cultivated Bolshevism in Russia and 
sown the seeds of the same horrible harvest in 
the United States; equally ready to condemn 
the men who are attacking the moral foun- 
dations of civilized society and to condemn the 
men who would take advantage of this attack 
to reestablish and reinforce the wrongs which 
made that attack possible. 

Mr. Roosevelt was "fighting honest." He 
abhorred that which is evil. He hated, as 

319 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

David did the enemies of Jehovah, with a per- 
fect hatred, impurities, meannesses, falsehoods, 
shams, dishonesties of every description. Easy- 
going good nature is a natural American defect, 
and Mr. Roosevelt's hearty and, in the main, 
healthy hatred of wrong doing made him both 
the most loved and probably the most hated of ] 
American public men of his time. 

It is true that his very virtues have some- , 
times led him into unjust judgments. His 
own understanding was so quick that he some- 
times failed to appreciate the extraordinary 
inability of many men correctly to understand 
others or to interpret correctly themselves. 
This inability of apparently intelligent men to 
understand others is illustrated by a little in- 
cident in my own experience. Once, in the Out- 
look, I said that Jesus was the most selfless man 
that ever lived; the next week I got an indignant 
letter from a reader asking me what I meant by 
charging that Jesus was the most selfish man 
that ever lived. Men sometimes misunderstood 
Mr. Roosevelt and men sometimes misunder- 
stood and misinterpreted themselves. As a 
result he received into what the press called his 
Ananias Club some men who should not have 
been admitted to it. 

Nevertheless, his judgment against wrong, 
whoever committed it, was generally well bal- 

320 






THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

anced and essentially just; and it found frequent 
expression in private conversation and private 
correspondence no less than in public utterance 
and public acts. Two sentences from one of his 
personal letters to me, written in 1916, at the 
time when a national railroad strike was threat- 
ened in order to coerce Congress, may serve here 
as a striking illustration of his universal habit 
of mind: "I think it is as foolish and as wicked 
to back any labour union which is wrong as to 
back any great corporation which is wrong. 
It makes no difference to the state whether we 
suffer from a White Terror or a Red Terror; 
whether the tyranny is that of the Ministers of 
Louis XV or that of Robespierre, Danton, and 
Marat." And he coupled this statement with 
one defining what his policy would have been 
had he been president when that strike was 
threatened and Congress and the President 
yielded to it. "I should tell the railroad owners 
and the heads of the Brotherhood that I would 
appoint a commission which would have in- 
cluded men like Raymond Robins and Patrick 
Morrissey, and that every question, including 
the eight-hour-law question, without any res- 
ervation, would be put before that commission, 
and that I would tolerate no action by Congress 
in advance of the report of that commission, 
and that I would tolerate no tie-up of the trans- 

321 






SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

portation systems of the country, and that I 
would use the entire armed forces of the country, 
if necessary, to run the railroads pending the 
decision of the Commission. I would have also 
stated that I would see that the commission 
had the power to interpret and enforce its de- 
crees, so that the men need have no fear that 
the railroad managers and owners would twist 
that arbitration so as to bear against them." 
In a matter of less importance he acted in this 
spirit in dealing with a strike during his own 
administration. In 1903 a man was discharged 
from the Government Printing Office, not be- 
cause he did anything wrong, but because the 
Labour Union disciplined him and demanded that 
he should, therefore, be discharged, and enforced 
the demand by the threat of a strike. The 
President promptly reinstated Miller (the man 
who had been discharged) and to a correspondent 
who protested wrote as follows: 

I have notified Palmer that he must reinstate Miller at 
once and then I will have an investigation made and see 
whether or not he has done anything which warrants his 
discharge, and notify all those under him that while there 
is no objection to the employees of the printing office 
forming a union or belonging to a union, yet that on the 
other hand I will not tolerate discrimination against a man 
because he does not belong to the union any more than 
against him because he does belong to it. In other words, 

322 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

I will proceed upon the only plan possible for a self- 
respecting American president, and treat each man on his 
merits as a man. The labour unions shall have a square 
deal and the corporation shall have a square deal, and in 
addition all private citizens shall have a square deal. 

This spirit of even-handed justice was per- 
haps the most distinguishing moral characteristic 
of Mr. Roosevelt's administration from his first 
entrance into politics in 1882 until his death. 
When he was nominated for the Assembly by 
the Republicans in 1881, in the twenty -third 
year of his age, his political sponsor took him to 
canvass the district, introduced him to a saloon 
keeper of importance in the district who thought 
the liquor licences were too high, and who said 
that he counted on Mr. Roosevelt, if elected, to 
use his influence for their reduction. The young 
candidate replied that he did not think them 
high enough and should probably use his influ- 
ence to make them higher. This ended his 
canvass in the saloons, but he was, nevertheless, 
elected for three successive terms. Appointed 
on the Civil Service Commission he defined Civil 
Service Reform as "designed primarily to give 
the average American citizen a fair chance in 
politics," and in conducting an arduous cam- 
paign against the Spoils System was equally 
ready to antagonize influential Republicans 
and to cooperate with influential Democrats. 

323 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

Thoughout his political career in maintaining 
Civil Service Reform he fought Senator Quay 
and Senator Hanna when they represented the 
Spoils System and cooperated with them when 
Quay maintained the rights of the Indians and 
Hanna was seeking to promote social justice. 
As Police Commissioner in New York City, at 
the time of strikes he protected the right of the 
working people to employ peaceable picketing 
and resolutely stopped every attempt of vio- 
lence by or on behalf of strikers; in dealing with 
disorderly houses, he subjected men found in 
them to the same treatment to which women 
were subjected and regarded the men as truly 
fallen as the women; asked to prevent an anti- 
Jewish agitator from speaking, he refused to in- 
terfere with freedom of speech, but appointed 
Jewish policemen to furnish the speaker pro- 
tection and so demonstrated the loyalty of the 
Jews as a class to the cause of law and order; 
and in his appointments and promotions in the 
police force neither politics nor personal favourit- 
ism had any place. "I never," he says, "coddled 
these men. I punish them severely whenever 
I think their conduct requires it. All I did 
was to try to be just; to reward them when they 
did well; in short, to act squarely by them." 
When he was elected Governor of the State of 
New York after the Spanish- American War, his 

324 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

spirit in dealing with the young men of the 
Assembly I have already indicated; his reform 
of a corrupt canal administration; his successful 
extension of civil service reform; his pushing 
through, in spite of great obstacles, a just tax 
on corporations that had theretofore been ex- 
empt, his too-little-known influence in prevent- 
ing the scheme for handing over the proposed 
subways in the city of New York to private 
ownership, and the part he took in securing their 
permanent ownership by the city united against 
him influential leaders in his party and powerful 
financial interests, irrespective of party. Unable 
to defeat his recommendation they hoped to 
shelve him by making him Vice-President, a 
position, usually of more honour than influence. 
Made President by the death of Mr. McKinley, 
in his first annual message he indicated clearly 
his position respecting the still-perplexing prob- 
lem of monopoly. He condemned the theories 
of the anarchists, declaring that anarchistic 
speeches, writings, and meetings are essentially 
seditious and treasonable, but he denied that as 
the rich have grown richer the poor have grown 
poorer; affirmed that, "on the contrary, never be- 
fore has the average man, the wage worker, the 
farmer, the small trader been so well off as in this 
country"; and he recognized that it was neces- 
sary to use extreme care in dealing with corporate 

325 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEIVIPORARIES 

wealth. But he also affirmed that there were 
real and grave evils which must be studied and 
overcome; that combination and concentra- 
tion "should be not prohibited, but supervised 
and within reasonable limits controlled"; and 
that this regulation and supervision of corpora- 
tions should not be left to the individual state, 
but should be exercised by the Federal power 
over all corporations doing interstate business. 
This principle he carried out consistently, and 
with both vigour and patience throughout his 
two Presidential terms. The course which, as 
I have above indicated, he thought ought to have 
been pursued at the time the Adamson Bill was 
forced through Congress by a threatened strike, 
he had himself pursued when the nation was 
threatened with a coal famine by an industrial 
war between the coal owners and the coal workers. 
He obtained the consent of a commission of 
eminent citizens, with Grover Cleveland at its 
head, to serve in deciding the merits of the con- 
troversy and in recommending an adjustment 
fair to both parties and to the public, and then 
arranged for the United States army to run 
the mines if there proved to be any delay in 
accepting the arbitration. "In such cases," he 
wrote in a letter to me, "the three parties in 
interest are: 1 — the property owners; 2 — the 
labourers; 3 — the public; and the President 

326 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

should act primarily as the representative of the 
public, that is, the people of this Nation as a 
whole; for this is a National question." For his 
interference in this case, Mr. Roosevelt has been 
sometimes sharply criticized. A sufficient an- 
swer to that criticism for the purposes of this 
paper is furnished by the general approval of the 
country as expressed by ex-President Cleveland 
in the sentences: "I do not think that any 
president ever acted more wisely, courageously, 
or promptly in a national crisis. Mr. Roose- 
velt deserves unstinted praise for what he 
did." 

I shall not in this paper reopen the questions 
hotly debated during the Progressive campaign 
of 1912, but I may without impropriety give to 
my readers my conviction respecting the motives 
which inspired Mr. Roosevelt in his course at that 
time. I saw letters that he wrote; I consulted 
with him on actions that he took; I was present 
in conferences that he held with leading public 
men from various parts of the country. I say 
with confident assurance that he did not desire to 
enter again into political campaigning. He had 
no political ambition to assume the duties of 
the Presidency. He wished to avoid these 
duties if he could do so with honour. His 
answer in letters and conferences, reiterated in 
literally hundreds of cases, was always the same: 

327 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

"I do not wish to be a candidate." So long as 
there was any prospect that Mr. La FoUette 
could and would be accepted as a leader of the 
Progressive party movement Mr. Roosevelt 
abstained from political activity. Not until 
Mr. La Follette had broken down nervously in 
his Philadelphia speech, and his own friends had 
counselled him to withdraw, and it had become 
apparent to those who were interested in the Pro- 
gressive principles and the Progressive move- 
ment that the movement was in danger of utter 
failure for want of a national leader, did Mr. 
Roosevelt reluctantly consent to accept the 
leadership which was urged upon him. His in- 
most feeling on the subject was revealed with 
characteristic frankness to his associates. To 
one of them he wrote in December, 1911, "I 
most emphatically do not wish the nomination. 
Personally, I should regard it as a calamity to be 
nominated. In the first place, I might very 
possibly be beaten, and in the next place, even 
if elected, I should be confronted with almost 
impossible conditions out of which to make good 
results." 

I recall, as I write these lines, the day when 
that decision was apparently finally reached. It 
was about the time when seven governors pre- 
sented to Mr. Roosevelt their united request 
that he become a candidate. He submitted to 

328 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

us, his associates on the Outlook stafiF, the ques- 
tion, Could he with honour dedine? Each 
member of the staff was asked by him to give 
his opinion on that question. One of our num- 
ber recalled the pledge that Mr. Roosevelt had 
given to the American people when he landed at 
the Battery, New York City, on his return from 
Europe: "I am ready and eager to do my part, 
so far as I am able, in helping solve problems 
which must be solved if we of this, the greatest 
democratic Republic upon which the sun has 
ever shone, are to see its destinies rise to the 
limit of our hopes and its opportunities." We 
all believed in the Progressive principles, and 
we all thought that the campaign for them at 
that time would be a forlorn hope. We all be- 
lieved that could Mr. Roosevelt remain in re- 
tirement for four years, in 1916 Progressive 
principles would be certain of victory, but we all 
agreed that he had no option but to accede to 
the apparently unanimous request of those who 
had faith in Progressive principles and accept 
their proffered leadership, whatever the im- 
mediate political results might be. He himself 
summed up in a graphic figure our unanimous 
conditions: "I am not going to get those good 
fellows out on the end of a limb and then saw 
off the limb." He entered on the primary cam- 
paign in February, 1912, at the call of honour, 

329 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

when ambition, ease, and personal inclinations 
all combined in urging him to resist that call. 

When at the close of his Presidency Mr. 
Roosevelt became a member of the editorial 
staflF of the Outlook, it was clearly understood 
that he was at perfect liberty to utter through 
our columns whatever opinions he wished to 
communicate to the public and that we should 
be at perfect liberty to express our dissent. It 
was a rather fortunate circumstance that a few 
weeks before this arrangement could properly be 
announced to the public he wrote an article on 
Tolstoy and I accompanied it with another, 
the two articles differing in some important re- 
spects in their estimate of that enigmatical char- 
acter. In the five years during which Mr. Roose- 
velt was thus associated with us nothing ever 
occurred to impair our mutual friendship ; by his 
courtesy and consideration he won from the first 
the devotion of all members of what we are accus- 
tomed to call "the Outlook Family"; and when, 
after five years of cooperation in dealing with ex- 
citing political topics, he withdrew from the Out- 
look, it was with his regret and with ours. He 
continued to the end of his life to be an occasional 
contributor to our columns and to possess the 
confidence, esteem, and affection of all the men 
and women on the Outlook, from the errand boy 
to the editor-in-chief. 

330 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

This sketch is neither a Hfe of Theodore Roose- 
velt nor an impartial analysis of his character. I 
knew him well; I esteemed him as a genius; I hon- 
oured him as a patriot; I loved him as a friend; 
and I have never regarded the vivisection of my 
friends as either a public duty or an agreeable 
recreation. Mr. Roosevelt's faults were on the 
surface; his virtues were in his fibre. We are 
a young nation. The American people, like 
college boys, discern the virtues beneath the 
faults and give to him their honour, their esteem, 
their affection. He was a courageous fighter, a 
loyal friend, and always a hater of injustice and 
a lover of righteousness. He was a shrewd poli- 
tician and a great statesman; a leader of the 
people but too good a democrat to be their ruler. 
Future history will honour him as one of the 
greatest citizens of a nation which has been 
prolific in great citizens. Of all the services he 
has rendered to his age, I count this the greatest: 
that by his words, his deeds, and his character 
he was always a preacher of righteousness. 



331 



JACOB ABBOTT, FRIEND OF CHILDREN 

MY FIRST recollection of my father is 
an incident which, though slight, is 
very significant of his spirit in dealing 
with children. Recovery from scarlet fever 
had left me subject to gatherings in the ear 
which produced very severe ear-aches. Surgical 
operations for such trouble were then unknown. 
The only relief obtainable was soaking cotton- 
wool in laudanum and putting it in the ear to 
deaden the pain. My father was living in the 
part of New York City now called Greenwich 
Village, and, with his brothers, was carrying on 
a school for girls in the city. It was quite 
essential for his work that he should get his 
night's rest. He made a bargain with me: he 
would tell me a story for fifteen minutes, then 
I was to let him sleep for fifteen minutes, and 
so we would go through the night together. 
Whether this was done for only one night or many 
nights, I do not now recall. By this bargain he 
and I became partners; he carried my burden, but 
I also did something to carry his burden. He 
would help me bear my pain, but he trusted me 
to help him get ready for his morrow's work. 

332 



JACOB ABBOTT 

This confidence in children and cooperation 
with children was one of his distinguishing char- 
acteristics. I have known men as fond of 
children as my father, but I have never known a 
man who had for them such respect. In a true 
sense, it might be said that he treated children 
as his equals, not through any device or from 
any scheme, but spontaneously and naturally. 
He trusted the judgment of children, took coun- 
sel with them, and in all the matters which 
concerned them and their world was greatly 
influenced by their judgments. He threw re- 
sponsibility upon them, great responsibility, 
and they realized it. 

This respect which he showed to children in- 
spired them with respect for themselves and for 
one another. It gave dignity to the children who 
came under his influence. That influence was a 
masterful one. I should misrepresent him if I 
gave the impression that he exercised no author- 
ity. On the contrary, his authority was supreme 
and final. He gave few commands, but he re- 
quired prompt, implicit, and unquestioning obe- 
dience to those which he did give. I have known 
children to disobey him, but I never knew one 
to rebel against him. I do not know what would 
have happened in case of a rebellion. I think 
no child ever thought of it as possible. I never 
knew him to strike a blow. I do not recall that 

333 



m 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

he ever sent a child to his room, or supperless to 
bed, or set him to write in his copy book, or 
to learn tasks, or resorted to any other of the 
similar expedients, necessary perhaps in school, 
and frequent in most families. In general, he 
simply administered natural penalties. If a 
child lied or broke his promises, he was dis- 
trusted. If he was careless or negligent, the 
things that were given to other children to play 
with were withheld from him. If he quarrelled, 
he was taken away from his playmates, but 
made as happy as he could be made in solitude. 
This spirit of respect which my father had for 
children interprets his literary method. He 
never condescended to children, never talked 
down to them or wrote down to them. He be- 
lieved they could understand large truths if they 
were simply and clearly stated. So in "Science 
for the Young" he dealt with some of the most 
interesting scientific phenomena; in his "Red 
Histories" he used biography to make clear the 
great historical epochs; in his Young Christian 
Series he interpreted some of the profoundest 
phases of spiritual experience. This spirit of 
confidence determined his style. He never 
sought for short and easy words, but selected 
what he thought the best word to express his 
meaning. The child, he said, will get the mean- 
ing of the word from the context, or if he does 

334 



JACOB ABBOTT 

not, he will ask his mother what the word means, 
and so he will be learning language. He did 
not write books about children for grown peoi)le 
to read. He wrote books for children because 
he shared their life with them. Perhaps it is a 
son's prejudice, but his books still seem to me 
to be among the best of true children's books. 
I have been often asked which one of his four 
sons was Rollo. The answ^er is: none of them. 
So far as I know, my father never painted a 
portrait, never took a single child out of real 
life and set him in a story ; never made a charac- 
ter to represent a type ; never undertook to work 
out through fiction the development of a charac- 
ter first philosophically conceived. He wrote 
his stories as he might have told them. If 
shorthand had been in vogue in his time, and 
one could have taken down any story of my 
father's as he might have told it to a group of 
children gathered about his chair, it would have 
been essentially the story as it is published from 
his pen. He did not form a plot beforehand. 
Each incident led on to the next incident; it 
might almost be said that each paragraph led 
on to the next paragraph; and when the al- 
lotted number of pages was finished, the story 
came to its end, much as the story -telling would 
come to an end when the clock struck nine and 
it was time for the children to go to bed. This 

335 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

method accounts for the artlessness of his narra- 
tives. They are natural portrayals of child life 
to children. The only approximation to por- 
trait painting is in "Jonas," "Beechnut," and 
"Rainbow." These characters in his stories 
used the devices, employed the methods, mani- 
fested the spirit which were characteristic of 
his dealing with children. To this extent and 
to this only can they be called portraits, for in 
every other respect they are unlike one another 
and quite unlike him. 

Let me go back a little and tell how he came to 
enter upon his life work — the writing of chil- 
dren's books. 

My grandfather gave his five boys a college 
and a theological education and then left them 
to employ that education as they thought best. 
One of them continued a preacher throughout 
his life, combining authorship with his pastoral 
duties. The others became teachers. My 
father accepted a tutorship at Amherst College 
almost immediately after his graduation from 
Andover Theological Seminary and at the age 
of twenty-two was made full professor of mathe- 
matics and natural philosophy. In a journal 
that he kept during his college days I find 
indications of a growing ambition toward author- 
ship. Among these is a plan for an undenomi- 
national religious journal of a high character, 

336 



JACOB ABBOTT 

though even then his habitual financial caution 
shows itself in the question whether such a 
journal could be made self-supporting. 

Four years later he accepted an invitation to 
go to Boston and there organize and carry on a 
school for the broader and better education of 
girls, one among the first in that movement for 
woman's education out of which have grown the 
girls' high schools and colleges. He had al- 
ready in Amherst College tried successfully, 
though in a small way, the experiment of self- 
government; had organized out of the students 
a "Fraternity of the Chapel Entry"; put into 
their hands the task of seeing that this entry was 
kept in order and provided with light and heat; 
and had so far enrolled himself as a member of 
the Fraternity as to be liable with the others 
to assessment for taxes and subject to the rules 
which the Fraternity might adopt. This princi- 
ple of self-government he carried out to a much 
greater extent in the Mt. Vernon school, in 
Boston, where he left the girls to study by them- 
selves in a common schoolroom without teacher 
or monitor, and appointed one of the girls to 
manage a simple but ingenious mechanism 
which he devised for letting the students know 
when the time for recess had come. 

Into this school he carried his ministerial 
ambitions and gave on Saturday mornings a series 

337 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

of religious lectures which led afterward to the 
publication of the Young Christian Series.* 

To prepare these lectures, or to write them 
in book form for the press, he rose very early in 
the morning, and wrote for a couple of hours or 
so before his breakfast. His ambition proved 
too great for his physique. He resigned and 
moved his family to his father's home in Far- 
mington, Maine. He purchased a wild place just 
across the road from his father's house, half 
sandhill, half marsh, with just room enough be- 
tween the sandhill and the road for a little 
cottage. Here he wrote the Rollo Books 
in the mornings, and worked on hill and 
marsh in the afternoons. He gradually con- 
verted the marsh into a pond; he opened the 
sand-bank to the public, and the public carted 
so much away that, in time, the grounds about 
the house became adequate if not ample; one 
hill grew into a grassy slope, the other, turfed 
and covered with trees, gave the place its name 
of "Little Blue," derived from a mountain 
twenty miles away known as "Old Blue." He 
redeemed wildness in boy and land by the 
same process, working with Nature, and wait- 
ing long and patiently for Nature to do her 
work. In later life he found equal pleasure in 



*"The Young Christian," "The Corner Stone," "The Way to Do Good," "Hoaryhead 
and McDonner." 

338 



s 



<f 



JACOB ABBOTT 

labouring upon the grounds of the two of his 
sons who had country homes; and the recreation 
of his decHning years was simple but artistic 
landscape gardening at Fewacres, the old home- 
stead. It was not enough for him to direct; 
he always wished to labour with his own hands. 
How often have I heard him say, when compelled 
by fatigue to relinquish the spade or pick, "I 
wish I could hire someone else's muscles and 
use them myself." 

The account which Samuel Butler has given of 
his own childhood in that tragic story "The Way 
of All Flesh" is perhaps an exaggerated account 
of an exceptionally unhappy childhood. Yet it 
is true that in the first half of the nineteenth 
century the more or less deliberate purpose of 
religious parents in Puritan households was the 
government of the children by fear of a tyranny 
which could not be resisted and the suppression 
by that government of the natural instincts of 
childhood. This purpose found expression in 
two popular mottoes: "Children should be 
seen and not heard" and "Spare the rod and 
spoil the child." Each of these mottoes was 
the outward expression of a deep-rooted Puritan 
philosophy, which might be expressed thus: 
From Adam all his descendants have inherited a 
depraved nature. That nature must be eradi- 
cated; the child's will broken; his evil tendencies 

S39 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

subdued. Only thus can he become a child of 
God. Jesus Christ had said: "Except ye become 
as little children, ye cannot enter the Kingdom 
of Heaven." Puritan theology had substituted : 
"Except ye become as grown-ups, ye cannot 
enter the Kingdom." The stories of childish 
saints is pathetic; the stories of the painstaking 
endeavour by pious parents to make childish 
saints is even more pathetic. 

Some years ago I went on a boating expedition 
in Penobscot Bay. We went ashore to spend 
the night in a farmhouse which was hospitably 
open to "paying guests." On the parlour table 
I found a Sunday-school Story Book, dated 
about 1830. A new baby was to be christened. 
Her little sister, seven or eight years old, came 
aglow with eager expectation to the mother. 
"How are you going to dress the baby?" she 
asked. "My child," said the pained but patient 
mother, "bring me the Prayer Book." It was 
brought. "Now read what the God-father says 
at the time of the Christening." The child read 
as follows: 

*'Dost thou, in the name of this child, renounce the devil 
and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, 
with all covetous desires of the same, and the sinful desires of 
the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow, nor be led by them? 

"Answer : I renounce them all ; and, by God's help, will 
endeavour not to follow, nor be led by them." 

340 



JACOB ABBOTT 

"Do you see, my child," said the mother, 
"how wicked it is to be thinking of the baby's 
dress at such a time? Go to your room and ask 
your Heavenly Father to forgive your worldly 
and sinful spirit." 

My father abhorred controversies of every de- 
scription and never attacked the current theology 
of his time, but all his children's books were based 
upon a psychological conception radically differ- 
ent. Toward the close of his life he published 
a volume entitled, "Gentle Measures in the 
Training of the Young." In this volume he 
interprets in a very simple form and with many 
concrete illustrations the philosophical principles 
on which all his children's books were based. 
Whether in 1834, when the first of the Rollo 
Books was published, he had defined to him- 
self those principles and wrote his books to 
illustrate and enforce them, or whether he 
wrote his books and carried on his teaching 
for nearly forty years and then from his stud- 
ies of children and his experiments with them 
evolved these principles, I do not know. I 
think the latter is more probably the truth. If 
so, if these principles were deduced from a third 
of a century's study and experiment, they are 
for that reason all the more valuable to the 
fathers and mothers of the present time. 

He neither assumed that the child is a little 



o 



41 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

cherub or a little devil. He assumed that "in 
respect of moral conduct as well as of mental 
attainments children know nothing when they 
come into the world, but have everything to 
learn either from the instructions or from the 
examples of those around them." Therefore, 
the child must be trained to perceive the difiFer- 
ence between truth and falsehood, generosity 
and selfishness, honesty and dishonesty exactly 
as he must be trained to walk or to talk. "The 
first time that a child attempts to walk alone 
what a feeble, staggering, and awkward exhibi- 
tion it makes. And yet its mother shows by 
the excitement of her countenance and the de- 
light expressed by her exclamations how pleased 
she is with the performance." He who really 
comprehends this philosophy and accepts it 
will realize that to train a child to perceive the 
sacredness of truth or recognize the rights of 
property requires infinite patience, and that the 
first failures of the child's conscience are no more 
deserving of punishment in the strict sense of that 
term than failures in his first experiments in walk- 
ing. "The mother is thus to understand that the 
principle of obedience is not to be expected to 
come by nature into the heart of her child, but 
to be implanted by education. She must under- 
stand this so fully as to feel that if she finds that 
her children are disobedient to her commands — 

342 



JACOB ABBOTT 

leaving out of view cases of peculiar and extraor- 
dinary temptation — it is her fault, not theirs." 

Though training in this spirit rarely, if ever, 
calls for punishment, it calls continually for 
discipline. The difference between the two is 
not in the act of the judge, but in his purpose 
and his spirit. I must here condense into a very 
few words a distinction to which my father gives 
a chapter of his book. 

Punishment may be regarded as a penalty de- 
manded by the eternal principles of justice and 
the natural consequence of the sin of the trans- 
gressor, or it may be considered as a remedial 
measure adopted solely to deter from similar 
errors or sins in time to come. "According to 
the first view, punishment is a "penalty which 
justice demands as a satisfaction for the past. 
According to the other it is a remedy which 
goodness devises for the benefit of the future." 
Without discussing the question which of these 
principles actuates God in his dealing with sin 
and the State in dealing with crime, my father 
contents himself with the declaration that 
"the punishment of a child by a parent, or of a 
pupil by a teacher, ought certainly, one would 
think, to exclude the element of vindictive ret- 
ribution altogether, and to be employed solely 
with reference to the salutary influence that 
may be expected from it in time to come." 

343 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

With this distinction between punishment de- 
manded by justice and punishment devised by 
benevolence my father coupled another — the 
difference between instinct and capacities . ' ' The 
dog has an instinct impelling him to attach him- 
self to and follow his master; but he has no in- 
stinct leading him to draw his master's cart. 
He requires no teaching for the one. It comes, 
of course, from the connate impulses of his 
nature. For the other he requires a skilful and 
careful training. ... So with the child. 
If he does not seem to know how to take his food, 
or shows no disposition to run to his mother when 
he is hurt or when he is frightened, we have rea- 
son to suspect something wrong, or, at least, 
something abnormal, in his mental or physical 
constitution. But if he does not obey his 
mother's commands — no matter how insubordi- 
nate or unmanageable he may be — the fault 
does not, certainly, indicate anything at all 
wrong in him. The fault is in his training. 
In witnessing his disobedience, our reflection 
should be, not 'What a bad boy!' but 'What 
an unfaithful or incompetent mother!'" 

These two fundamental distinctions must be 
borne in mind by any reader who desires to 
understand the principles of family and school 
government which my father inculcated and 
illustrated by his books. 

344 



JACOB ABBOTT 

The first lesson a child must learn is obedience. 
He comes into a world of law. He neither 
knows what the laws are nor why he should obey 
them. To the father and the mother is en- 
trusted the duty of teaching these first lessons 
of life. 

There are inexorable laws of nature. He who 
does not know and obey these laws may easily 
kill himself by a single act of innocent because 
ignorant disobedience, and he will be certain to 
injure himself by repeated acts of disobedience. 
There are unwritten laws of society which will 
confront him in the family, in the playground, 
and later in social and commercial circles. If 
he ignores and disregards them he will soon find 
himself a social outcast. His companions will 
assume that he knows them and disregards them 
deliberately because either of malice or stupidity. 
There are laws of the State. If he habitually 
ignores or disregards these laws, he may speedily 
find himself in prison. Courts will not listen to 
his plea that he was ignorant of them. Ignor- 
ance is an excuse which the community does not 
accept. Nature is pitiless. Society, if not 
absolutely pitiless, is wholly unsympathetic. 
It is, therefore, the first and most fundamental 
duty of the parent to teach the child that he is 
not independent; that he cannot live his own 
life regardless of other lives; that he must learn 

345 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

to yield his will to the wills of others and to the 
One Supreme Will, if he would live a happy and 
a useful life. 

But there are comparatively few families in 
which this necessity is understood and in which 
the children are taught to obey promptly and 
without question. In some obedience is not 
taught at all ; in some it is taught only irregularly 
and fitfully; in some disobedience is inculcated 
by the constant issuing of commands which there 
is no purpose to enforce and the threatening of 
penalties which there is no purpose to inflict. 
In one of my father's stories he puts the secret 
of good government in family or school in four 
sentences, thus: 

When you consent, consent cordially. 
When you refuse, refuse finally. 
When you punish, punish good-naturedly. 
Commend often; never scold. 

My father's stories for children are largely 
employed in illustrating and enforcing these 
four principles. I could wish that everyone who 
has to do with the government of children 
would commit them to memory and would, 
from time to time, by these rules test his ad- 
ministration of that government. But he will 
find impossible the last two rules unless he be- 
lieves, with my father, in the truth that the 

346 



JACOB ABBOTT 

child is not morally to blame for the failure to 
understand moral principles which have never 
been inculcated. 

Josie comes to visit Phonny and Malleville. 
Phonny comes up into Beechnut's room, to 
which he is confined by a slight illness, and 
tells Beechnut that Josie is coming to make him 
a visit. 

"Ah!" said Beechnut, "then I must get ac- 
quainted with her. And the first thing is to 
find out whether I have got to teach her to obey 
me, or whether she has learned to obey already." 

"How do you think it is?" asked Phonny. 

"I think she has not learned to obey," said 
Beechnut. 

"Why not.?" asked Phonny. 

"Because she is a city girl," said Beechnut, 
"and city girls are very seldom taught to obey." 

"Why not?" asked Phonny again. 

"Oh, because," said Beechnut, "they are put 
away from their mother's care and into the care 
of nursery-maids so much. The nursery-maids 
coax them, and bribe them, and deceive them 
— and do everything to them except teach them 
simply to obey." 

"And how are you going to find out," asked 
Phonny, "whether Josie has been taught to 
obey?" 

"You will see," said Beechnut. 

347 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

He finds out in a very simple manner. Josie 
starts to open the drawers of the little bureau, 
pays no attention to Beechnut's telling her not 
to do so and finds the drawers empty. 

"Why, Beechnut," said Josie, "what did you 
say I must not open these drawers for.^^ There 
is nothing in them." 

"There is a knob," suggested Malleville. 

"Yes; nothing but the knob," said Josie. 
"What was the reason?" repeated Josie. 

"I had a reason," replied Beechnut. 

"What was it.^^" persisted Josie. 

"I know what it was," said Phonny. 

"What.?" asked Josie. 

Phonny hesitated a moment, not being quite 
sure whether it would be polite for him to tell 
what he thought. At length he said, somewhat 
timidly : 

"To see whether you would obey him or not." 

"Was that the reason .f^" asked Josie. 

"Yes," said Beechnut. 

"Truly!" said Josie. 

"Yes," said Beechnut, "really and truly." 

Josephine looked a little ashamed and con- 
fused when she heard this, but presently re- 
covering herself a little she asked Beechnut what 
made him wish to know particularly whether 
she would obey him. 

"Because," said Beechnut, "I have got a 

348 



JACOB ABBOTT 

number of pictures, and picture-books, and 
curiosities of various kinds up in my room, 
which perhaps it would amuse you to see. I 
let children go up and see them sometimes with- 
out me if I am only sure beforehand that they 
will follow precisely the directions that I give 
them." 

Josie has thus had an opportunity to learn 
her first lesson: obedience is not a door of ad- 
mission into a prison, it is a door of exit into 
liberty; it is an achievement by which one's 
powers and privileges are increased. It is cur- 
ious how slow even philosophy has been to learn 
that all our powers over nature have been ac- 
quired by intelligent obedience of the laws of 
nature, and how, similarly, freedom in the moral 
realm is acquired only by voluntary obedience of 
the moral laws written in the constitution of man 
and of human society. "The first duty," says 
my father, "which devolves upon the mother 
in the training of her child is the establishment 
oi her authority over him.'''' . . . "The first 
essential condition required for the performance 
of this duty is the fixing of the conviction in 
her own mind that it is a duty." 

The penalty need not be severe. It is not 
by the severity but by the certainty of the penalty 
that a habit of obedience is developed. But 
whatever the penalty, it must not only always be 

349 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

just, but if possible, such as will seem just to the 
child. For the object of the ruler should be 
not to suppress, but to develop the child. Not 
infrequently in his books my father illustrates 
methods by which the cooperation of the child 
can be secured in selecting and enforcing disci- 
pline. The penalty need not necessarily in- 
flict any pain ; since the object is not to deter by 
fear, but to secure the aid of the child in future 
endeavours to cure his fault, not infrequently the 
penalty is even amusing. Phonny in harnessing 
the horse which is to take them to ride has failed 
to follow Beechnut's directions. Beechnut at 
the time says nothing, but after they have started 
on their ride he suggests that Phonny would en- 
joy his ride more if he were first to be punished 
for his disobedience. He suggests that Phonny 
mount upon the horse with his face toward his 
tail and ride in that way for a quarter of a mile. 
Phonny accepts the punishment. Malleville 
and Phonny are both greatly amused during 
the operation, though Phonny's seat proved 
to be very uncomfortable. 

Though discipline is not always terrifying and 
sometimes may even be amusing, it must always 
be sufiicient at the time to secure obedience. 
Severity in punishment is rarely necessary, but 
certainty of some punishment is necessary. And 
no inconvenience that the enforcement of law 

350 



\\ 



JACOB ABBOTT 

may occasion to the parent or teacher furnishes 
any excuse for allowing disobedience to pass 
without such penalty as the circumstances may 
require. 

Jonas, with three boys, is sailing on a pond 
to take some grain to the mill. Jonas is in com- 
mand of the expedition. Josey , who has not yet 
learned to obey, disregards Jonas's directions, and 
undertakes to go forward to take a seat which 
Jonas has assigned to another boy. As he starts 
to go forward Jonas with his paddle brings 
the boat around. The boom comes thumping 
against Josey's head and shoulders and he sinks 
down into the bottom of the boat to get out of 
the way. "What was that for.^" asks Josey. 
"I am going to put you ashore," replied Jonas. 
"Me ashore!" repeated Josey, more and more 
surprised. He looked forward, and saw that 
the boat was now pointed toward the shore, at 
a place on the back side of the point of land 
which they had just passed. 

"Yes," said Jonas, "the only way, when we 
have an unmanageable passenger on board, 
is to put him ashore upon the nearest land." 
. . . "But what shall I do," said he, "if you 
put me ashore?" 

"You can either walk home, or wait there till 
we come back from the mill. I'll call for you 
when I come back." 

351 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

The other two boys finally interceded for 
Josey, and Jonas, with some hesitation, accedes 
to their request. But Josey had learned his 
lesson that "there is no getting along out at sea 
without obeying the commander." 

The reader will observe another element in 
this incident: Jonas is sustained by the public 
opinion of the community, that is, by the other 
two boys. I am almost inclined to the opinion 
that all rebellion against government, whether 
in school, factory, or nation, is partly due to the 
fault of the governor. My father was pro- 
fessor in a college and three times principal in 
schools of considerable size, and so far as I know, 
never had the slightest difficulty in enforcing law 
and maintaining order. The reason, I think, 
was that he was always supported in his admin- 
istration by the public opinion of the students. 
Government by force over an objecting popu- 
lation is always a despotism, though it may be a 
benevolent despotism. My father was con- 
stitutionally a democrat, that is, a believer in 
self-government, and it was because he believed 
in self-government that he laid stress upon the 
duty of the parent and the teacher, to maintain 
his authority by so exercising it as to develop 
self-control in his subjects. i 

The last ten years of his life my father spent 
quietly with his two sisters in what had been his 

352 



JACOB ABBOTT 

father's home in Farmington, Maine. Here his 
children and grandchildren delighted to visit 
him; here he organized a school of a unique char- 
acter composed of his grandchildren and some 
of their playmates. Admission to this school 
was by invitation. There were no fees and no 
entrance examinations, and attendance was 
voluntary. But if the child entered the school 
it was as a loyal subject of an educational com- 
monwealth. He could not be sometimes a citizen 
and sometimes an alien. To be admitted to this 
school was accounted, by its pupils, a high privi- 
lege. One of these pupils has written for me, 
at my request, the following reminiscence which 
will give to the readers not only a graphic picture 
of the school, but an interesting illustration of 
my father's method. 

"When I was a boy, ten or eleven years of age, 
I spent one winter and a part of two summers, 
I think, with my grandfather, Jacob Abbott, at 
his home in Farmington, Maine, carrying on my 
studies under his supervision. 

*'No elements of knowledge seemed to him 
too abstract or difficult to interest a child, and 
his methods of teaching were such that they did 
interest the children. I studied with him, for 
example, some of the simple problems of Eucli- 
dean geometry, and for many years kept the 
blank books in which I had drawn my diagrams 

353 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

and written my demonstrations. His method 
was to make every study apply in some way or 
other to the actual life round about us. Two in- 
stances illustrating this method of teaching have 
remained in my memory for fifty years. I was 
studying arithmetic and came to percentage. 
Now my experience with my own children is 
that percentage as ordinarily taught in the 
schools is a horrible bore. It means learning 
rules by rote with very little conception of the 
practical use and operation of percentage. My 
grandfather solved the difficulty in this way. 
When we came to percentage he entrusted me 
with the duty of making his deposits, cheques 
and cash, in the village bank, which was about 
half a mile away. I had to write out the deposit 
slips and take the pass book and have the proper 
entry made. He made a contract with me that 
I was to be paid for this work on a percentage 
basis. I do not remember what the rate was, 
but let us say it was a quarter of 1 per cent, 
or a tenth of 1 per cent. If the latter was the 
rate I therefore got ten cents for making a de- 
posit of one hundred dollars, or a fraction of ten 
cents for a lesser sum. Both the purpose and 
operation of percentage were thus fixed in my 
mind and by a process which was the very re- 
verse of boresome. 

"In a garden adjoining the house there was a 

354 



'I 



I 



JACOB ABBOTT 

martin box, that is to say a bird-house rather 
elaborately built on the top of a tall painted 
pole, to house the martins, a bird of the swallow 
family which frequents parts of New England 
and is welcomed by the householders both be- 
cause it is picturesque in its swooping flight 
and because it clears the garden of insects and 
worms. One day a conversation like this took 
place between my grandfather and myself, my 
grandfather being at that time a man of about 
sixty -five years of age : 

''Grandfather. '.L., how would you hke to 
measure the height of a martin pole without get- 
ting within twenty -five feet of it? 

*'L. Pooh! It can't be done. 

''Grandfather. Yes, I think you could do it if 
you are willing to take a little pains. 

"L. Do you really think I could do it? 

"Grandfather. Yes, I think you can if you are 
willing to take the pains that surveyors take 
when they build a railroad. 

"L. Do they have to measure things without 
going near them? 

"Grandfather. Yes, they have to measure 
the height of precipices, sometimes of moun- 
tains. 

"L. (His curiosity now somewhat excited). 

How do they do that? 

"Grandfather. By what is called triangulation 

855 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

and by using some interesting tables of figures 
called logarithms. 

"To make a long story short, I was enticed by 
this method into studying the very simple ele- 
ments of surveying, and I did measure the height 
of a martin pole and used a logarithm table in 
the process. Instead of being a dry-as-dust 
study which I rebelled against, it was trans- 
formed into a game which I really enjoyed. 
In the same way my elemental French and ele- 
mental Latin were applied to the objects and 
the life round about us. My grandfather was, 
I think, one of the pioneers in this country in 
the application of this principle of interesting 
the child in its studies. 

" Quarrels and controversies between the 
grandchildren or the village children who 
came to Fewacres to play were settled by the 
application of this principle. A court would be 
organized, one of the quarrellers would be the 
plaintiff, the other the defendant. Witnesses 
would be summoned; a small jury would be 
empanelled and my grandfather would be 
the judge. If the defendant was found guilty 
he usually was punished by a fine of some kind, 
perhaps suggested by the judge, but generally 
determined by the jury. If it was a quarrel 
over a swing, for example, and the defendant 
was found guilty he might be sentenced not 

356 



JACOB ABBOTT 

to use the swing for an hour or for a day, as 
the case might be, and the poUce who were duly 
appointed among the children were expected to 
see that the sentence was carried out. The result 
was that Fewacres was not only the favour- 
ite resort of the grandchildren, but the favourite 
resort of many of the village children, who, I 
am sure, like myself, had impressed upon their 
minds, although wholly subconsciously, some of 
the elemental principles of science and govern- 
ment that were very useful to them in after 
life." 

Another grandchild has told me that a bank 
was organized with a president, a board of 
directors, a cashier, and a teller, in which 
ivory counters served as coin. Bank bills were 
issued, promissory notes were discounted, and 
all the ordinary operations of banking were car- 
ried on in what was at once a game and a study. 
My father used a very simple method to teach 
the children the difference between labour and 
commodities, a difference which even to this 
day some larger employers of labour appear 
not to comprehend. "Grandfather," says nay 
informant, "would send two of us into the vil- 
lage to make a purchase for him. Sometimes 
he would tell us that if we would get the needed 
article he would purchase it from us, in which 
case, we sold it to him at a small profit, but if 

357 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORARIES 

we could not get the article at the stores, we got 
nothing for our errand. Sometimes he would 
employ us to do the errand and then we were 
paid whether we succeeded or failed." 

My father accumulated few books and nothing 
that could be called a library, but his method 
of using books was of a great service to his neigh- 
bours. There is an excellent village library in 
Farmington and its catalogue shows large and 
constant contributions from Fewacres, which in- 
clude many of which my father was the author. 
He also sent periodically to this library the 
weekly papers and monthly magazines after their 
immediate use by the Fewacres' household. He 
took no active part in church aiffairs, and I do 
not think ever attended the monthly meeting 
for the transaction of church business. But he 
habitually attended the church service on Sunday 
mornings, where his presence was an inspiration 
to the preacher. His pastor, the Reverend 
George N. Marden, subsequently a professor in 
Colorado College, in a manuscript account of his 
recollections of my father, says, "Before me, at 
this moment, lies a note from his hand, in which, 
with a modest apology, he refers to the sermon I 

of the previous day as likely to call forth various 
opinions and states that he wishes to state his 
own decided approbation." In such simple and 
characteristic ways as this, he showed himself i 

358 



I 



I 



i 



JACOB ABBOTT 

to be an appreciative rather than a critical 
hearer. 

He did not take any active part in village poli- 
tics and never, so far as I know, any other active 
part than that of a voter in the politics of 
either the state or the nation. But his view of 
what was due to the Government under which 
he lived is indicated by an incident which Mr. 
Harden relates: "Mr. Abbott's sterling integrity 
as a citizen was illustrated when having changed 
his legal residence from New York to Farming- 
ton he stated the amount of his taxable property. 
The astonished assessor exclaimed, 'Why, Mr. 
Abbott, if you are assessed on this entire sum 
you will pay a larger tax than any man in Far- 
mington, you will pay more than your share.' 
Mr. Abbott quietly replied, *I know but one 
way of stating the amount of my taxable prop- 
erty and that is to state it just as it z>.'" 

Thus my father spent his last years peacefully 
and quietly in his old home, honoured by his 
fellow-citizens, adored by the children. He 
died in 1879 in the seventy-sixth year of his 
age. His youngest son and I were with him 
at the time of his death. My brother, who was 
stronger than I, lifted my father up during a 
paroxysm of pain and then laid him down again 
upon the pillow, saying to him, "Are you more 
comfortable now, Father.^" and received the 

359 



SILHOUETTES OF MY CONTEMPORABIES 

whispered answer, "Too comfortable. I hoped 
that I was going." These were, I think, his 
last words. 

In his preface to the Franconia Stories my 
father states the principle by which he has been 
guided in all his story-writing for children: 
"The development of the moral sentiments in 
the human heart, in early life — and everything, 
in fact, which relates to the formation of charac- 
ter — is determined in a far greater degree by 
sympathy, and by the influence of example, 
than by formal precepts and didactic instruc- 
tion." . . . "It is in accordance with this 
philosophy that these stories, though written 
mainly with a view to their moral influence on the 
hearts and dispositions of the readers, contain 
very little formal exhortation and instruction." 

Therefore, in his stories for children, my 
father's religious teaching was implied, rather 
than directly expressed; but it was not less effec- 
tive for that reason. To his Christian faith he 
has given expression in the Young Christian 
Series, though even in those volumes it is ex- 
pressed, never in the abstract terms of scholastic 
theology, but in dramatic forms and by sim- 
ple illustrations taken from our common life. 
Faith in a Heavenly Father as a friend and 
companion made known to us by the human 

360 



JACOB ABBOTT 

life of Jesus of Nazareth, and a supreme desire 
to know his will, deserve his confidence, and 
cooperate with him in his work, were the secrets 
of my father's religious experience, the founda- 
tion of his theological philosophy, and the in- 
spiration of his life-long industry. This simple 
creed I have inherited from him. It has been 
the substance and the inspiration of my teach- 
ing for over three quarters of a century, and for 
it I am indebted to lessons received and spirit 
imbibed from the author of the Rollo Booksj'^the 
Franconia Stories, and the Young Christian 
Series. 

THE END 



361 




THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 



I 



I.' 






r^ V" 






.^ 






-vs 






.-^ ■';: 



.^^ -^^ 






•.,^ 












^^S 


m^m 
^cj 


aICCJKJit 
















^^^^^ 




^ 
























Jm* 
















^ 




m 








m 








^ 
















1 












H 




isss 








1 














^ 












^ 






Sffi 






m 


^^^^fnuSff 






1 










m 




Hi 


ffi 








""W 862 696 



